


Crown and Calling

by spirrum



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Origins gang reunion road trip (sort of), Warden King and Queen, learning-to-be-married-again fic, let's-cure-the-Calling fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-14 02:39:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7995583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spirrum/pseuds/spirrum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Breach is closed; the world is saved, but the Hero of Ferelden's quest continues. The taint is killing her, there's no way around it - you're a Warden to your grave, every Warden knows that. But that doesn't mean she'll go to her grave willingly. Alone, perhaps, but no, never willingly.</p><p>Of course, she should have figured her husband would want a word in the matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. half of one whole heart

**Author's Note:**

> Man, I've missed writing these two.
> 
> This is based on the fan-theory that the cure to the Calling might be found in Alistair's blood. Liberties will therefore be taken with regard to plot-progression (and by that I mean I will straight up make stuff up for the sake of the plot if I have to, because I am dead set on a happy ending for these two). I hope you'll bear with me!
> 
> (NB - Rating may change!)

She’s imagined their reunion so many times she’s lost count.

They are companions of sorts, these thoughts, although as far as companionship goes, not all of them seem to have her best interest in mind. Some days she’ll startle awake from dreams of falling into his arms, and nearly topple right off her horse. Thankfully, Briar doesn’t break her stride, only wickers in a way that – after months and months on the road with no one else for company – has started to sound like a scolding.

“So much for that last shred of sanity,” she laments wryly, and immediately imagines his response:

 _Last shred? I hate to say it, but I think you lost that long before the_ _horse started voicing its opinion._

At the start of her journey she’d will his ghost away, stubbornly pushing aside thoughts of her court and her people, and her King holding it all together at the seams. But she’s older now, and tired, and allowing herself to indulge in silly daydreams is a small vice, when she denies herself everything else. And it beats the Calling anyhow, although she knows there’s no real respite from the Song.

But she’s imagined returning home – the hour before dawn, kicking off her boots and padding across the soft carpets of their bedchamber. She’s imagined finding him half asleep at his writing desk, fingertips stained black with ink. He’ll wake to the touch of her hand, and then her skin is the one with marks, kisses and fingerprints peppering her jaw, and she’s laughing like she used to, back when she remembered how.

She toes the border between dream and reality more often than not these days, but there’s always a keen knowledge underlying it all, sitting in every breath and heartbeat, that none of it is real. She’ll come to, slowly, stiff and cold and blinking blearily into the pale morning shadows to find his ghost lumbering in the corner of her eye, pushing through the underbrush with a familiar grumble about poison ivy and _I swear_   _this is the last time I go to take a piss half-asleep_. But she _knows_ – knows it as well as she knows the lonely quiet that waits ahead and trails behind her – that he won’t be there when she turns her head to look.

And it’s been so long since she stopped turning to look for him, which is why, on the day he’s actually _there_ , whole and hale and in the flesh, heart beating against the plates of his armour and court regalia swapped with sword and shield, it takes her far too long to realise he’s not a figment of her imagination.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s not yet morning – it’s too dark, dark enough for Zev to keep coaxing the fire into yielding more light, more warmth, and Elissa doesn’t have the strength to tell him it’s no use, that she’s too cold to feel it anyway, and even when she’s not it’s a different heat she feels, a cloying, feverish thing that licks across her skin and turns her thoughts to mud.

She’s been walking close to death so long she wonders idly what it’ll take to finally push her over. It’s become a strangely mundane thing, like wondering when it will rain next, or when it was they last stopped for supplies.

“You are the worst patient in my acquaintance,” Morrigan declares as Elissa limps across the campsite. She’s alternating between shivering hard enough to make her teeth chatter and sweating through her shift, and the ground tilts unpleasantly as she tries to pick her way towards her pack without falling on her face.

“This isn’t your regular head-cold,” she retorts lightly, voice slightly hoarse.  _Liar_ is what she doesn’t say, because they both know who the worst patient is, but his name hasn’t left the witch’s lips, and Elissa wonders, in a strange mixture of sombre understanding and half-hysteric mirth, if Morrigan thinks it would be what finally does her in.

It wouldn’t – she thinks about him with every Maker-damned breath and she hasn’t keeled over yet, but she doesn’t tell her that. Zev knows, but keeps quiet as he continues to stoke the fire. Of course, Zev is the one who’s been holding her hair back every night when she wakes with a scream pushing up her throat, only to be emptied with the contents of her stomach.

She’s cold again, and sinks down next to where he’s seated by the fire, pulling her thick winter coat around her shoulders. It’s late summer and not nearly cold enough to warrant such a heavy garment, but she’s shaking so badly she thinks she’d give her horse for something warmer.

She wouldn’t, of course, but the dying are allowed their desperate thoughts, and Briar will forgive Elissa hers.

Silently, and with only the barest hint of silent judgement (which is no small feat, but then they’ve done this particular dance before), Morrigan settles down on her right, pressed too close to pretend she’s doing anything but offering comfort, although Elissa knows better than to point that out. But she’s dying a slow death, and the dying can take certain liberties – like tucking her head against a friend’s shoulder and not giving a damn if it disturbs her peculiar sensibilities.

Across the fire Kieran sleeps the heavy slumber of the unwearied, and Elissa watches the soft rise and fall of his chest and tries to remember what it felt like, to sleep like that, tucked close to her husband in a cramped tent, or under the velvet canopy of their marriage bed.

She doesn’t remember, but likes to pretend she can. It’s better that way.

“Give me an idea,” she says to the flames. They do this every night, like a ritual – like they did, once, when their enemy was a creature of flesh and blood and the Calling no more than the occasional, horrid nightmare.

It had started like this: _Give me an idea_ , Alistair had said, grin flashing young and boyish. _To defeat the Archdemon. The best suggestion will be awarded…my very last pair of clean socks._ Which, having waded across a soggy marsh only the day before, leaving nearly everything in their possession soaked and smelling of bog-water, was not a deal made lightly.

 _My, what a prize,_ Morrigan had drawled, but offered her suggestion regardless – _One of your unwashed socks should do the trick._

 _Ah, but who would bring it to the Archdemon?_ Zev had countered, not missing a beat. _Who could be compelled to make such a sacrifice, for the greater good?_

There’d been a pause, and – _I would sooner take my chances with the Blight,_ Sten had remarked, deadpan, and the memory lures a trembling smile to her face now, sitting by the fire with the last of her companions, longing for another time, and a chorus of laughter she’ll never hear again.

But she tries – tries to recreate this one little thing that had kept her going back then, through the loss of her family, her home and her humanity. It goes a little differently now, but then there’s only the three of them – four, if Kieran is awake, but Elissa would spare him the gallows humour that seems to be the only kind she can manage these days.

This is how it goes: first, Zev will suggest an outrageous plan – something truly ridiculous and romantic (“Ah, mi amor, if I were a bolder man I’d seduce Death herself for your sake”), and Elissa knows it’s because he hopes it might inspire a smile. And Morrigan will pick the plan apart, one dry observation at a time, but with far less acidity than she would have offered, once.

They are small things, these little comforts they offer, but they’re given from hearts that know her better than most, and that alone is what has kept her going these last few weeks, Elissa suspects. Ever since they’d joined up with her against her better judgement, although looking back, she knows her protests had been half-hearted at best.

In the end, her heart is far more selfish than the stories would have the world believe.

“Blood,” Morrigan says then, when no one has spoken, and Elissa looks up from where she’s been dozing on her shoulder.

“What?”

The firelight dances in her eyes, turning them a molten gold, and the pensive press of her brow tells Elissa it wasn’t spoken in jest.

“There was a mage with the Inquisition forces,” Morrigan continues after a beat, choosing her words carefully, as though uncertain if they should be spoken at all. False hope is a dangerous thing, after all, for someone who’s begging the Maker for scraps. “If she is to be believed, she was once a Grey Warden.”

You’re a Warden to your grave, every Warden knows that. But – “Was?” Her voice sounds hoarse to her own ears, and her heart is a hammer-on-anvil against her skull. But that lone word stands out, along with the first.

_Blood. Was._

Morrigan nods, slowly, eyes trained on Kieran’s sleeping form across the fire. “I am not certain she was telling the truth. However–”

“You think the cure might be in her blood?”

A shrug, feigning ease. “A great many things may be wrought from blood,” she says at length, a familiar warning echoed in her words.

Elissa swallows, and ignores it. She doesn’t look at Kieran. “Where is she now? The mage?”

“The College of Enchanters, if I should wager a guess,” Morrigan says, sliding her a look. “It might be nothing.”

Her heart leaps despite herself. It’s almost ridiculous, how quick she still is to grasp for the smallest of possibilities. It might well be nothing, but–

But.

“Well, it’s not like we have any other pressing matters on the agenda,” she says. _Other than my slow and inevitable death_. “So I vote we go–”

“Perhaps–” Morrigan presses her lips together before she can finish speaking, and Elissa blinks. Then – “Perhaps we should wait until you have rested,” she says, with a promptness that doesn’t brook any arguments, and Elissa is suddenly, _sorely_ tempted to quip that she sounds very much like a mother.

As it is, she’s too baffled by Morrigan’s sudden reluctance to linger long on that thought. “Mor, it’s not like I’m getting any better. If this is a lead we should investigate.” _While I still can_ is what she doesn’t say, but she knows they can hear it well enough.

“I am not usually one to advocate caution, but…waiting might not be such a terrible idea,” Zev says then, to Elissa’s surprise. “It is a long way to the College, no?”

Her head is throbbing, and she’s trying very hard not to think about the Song (if you think about it, it gets you; it’s a knowledge every Warden must bear), but something about their shared reluctance manages to push past her confusion, trickling with sudden clarity through the muddled chaos of her thoughts.

“Wait – why are you _agreeing_ with each other?”

At least Morrigan looks like she wants to ask the same thing, keen eyes focused on Zevran now, and the naked suspicion on her face no doubt mirroring Elissa’s own.

Of course, an excellent liar, Zev meets their suspicion with a carefully blank expression. “Our concern for your well-being surprises you?” he asks Elissa.

There’s something at the tip of her tongue – a thought she can’t pin a name to; an inkling that tickles a thought just out of her reach.

In any case, she’s not given the chance to pursue it, interrupted by the sound of footsteps falling heavily beyond the ring of the firelight.

The Song has dulled her reflexes, but she is a Warden still, and she feels the pull in her blood – that curious tug just behind her breastbone that alerts her to approaching Darkspawn; to anything that contains the taint that clogs her own veins.

 _Blood_ , she thinks, thoughts racing to catch up with her heart, dancing a terrible staccato against her ribcage because she knows the taint like an old friend, feels it within her even now, always reaching out to kindred spirits as corrupted as her own, but _this_ –

She knows this feeling, knows _this_ calling, blood to blood, but it’s for an entirely different reason and an entirely different bond, and before her mind can catch up with her body she’s lurched to her feet, drawn forward by some invisible force that makes her forget her fever and the cold.

“And here I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t show,” Zevran announces, rising smoothly to join her, but she’s too shocked to register the words coming out of his mouth, eyes staring across the flickering flames to the tall shape stepping out of the shadows at the edge of their campsite. “And I, who sent such careful instructions of where to find us.”

And Alistair – her King _, her husband_ – blinks.

Then, brows pulling down in an expression so familiar it strikes her like a blow – “Your ‘careful instructions’ would have landed me somewhere in Orlais,” he says – _says_ , his voice as she remembers, gruff with mock annoyance and warmed by poorly concealed humour, and Elissa can only gape.

There’s a moment of complete silence, but before either of them has the chance to speak – “At least she included an actual map in her letter,” Alistair adds, gesturing to Morrigan, who doesn’t so much as flinch in response.

“Children respond better to visual aids,” she says coolly, as though it’s ten years ago and they’re at each other’s throats again; as though Elissa isn’t dying, and she didn’t leave her husband in the middle of the night on an impossible quest to cure the incurable. Except that it’s not ten years ago, it’s _now_ and they’re here, the very last of what they were, and her husband is standing across the fire from her as though he’s not supposed to be anywhere else, except he is because he’s _King_ and both of them can’t be here, there’s only room for one piss-poor monarch per royal couple and she’s already claimed that title for herself, and _she’d specifically told them to leave him out of it and they’d agreed, the_ –

 _“Traitors,”_ Elissa breathes, but there’s no force behind the word – she can’t find her Warden-Commander voice, no matter how hard she looks. Instead all she finds is _Elissa_ , the way she had been, her father’s pup with her strong-feeling heart, voice raw with betrayal and love and a desperate, almost breathless happiness.

She barely registers her companions retreating, giving them space – doesn’t see Zevran make for the sleeping shape by the fire, lifting it with ease, or Morrigan following suit towards the far corner of the campsite.

She only has eyes for her husband, standing less than three paces away and looking at her like she isn’t a dead woman walking.

He looks better than she does – unaffected, almost. Exhausted, perhaps, but it’s the tiredness of a long journey, of loss and longing, not the sickness that’s pulling her apart from the inside. And she wants to ask – _how, why_ , because his Joining preceded her own – but she’s torn between confusion and that terrible aching _relief_ that, if anything, her husband isn’t dying as quickly as she is.

He’s grown his hair long – he’s pulled it back, and it curls endearingly below his ears, a shade redder than she remembers from when they’d walk under the sun. There’s stubble on his chin, and a new broadness to his shoulders, no longer the boy-king she married, and it makes something unfurl in her chest, something that’s been coiled so tight it’s a miracle she’s been able to breathe past it.

Her throat feels raw, and she can’t shape her racing thoughts into words. But she doesn’t need to. Even after so many years apart, he knows her better than anyone, and, “Teagan,” Alistair says, before she can ask who’s keeping their kingdom from falling apart when he’s here, and “ _Elissa_ ,” he breathes before she can ask anything else, ask what in Andraste’s name he thinks he’s doing, being here, now, after the lengths she’s gone to make sure he doesn’t need to carry this particular burden.

She has a thousand questions. She thinks she might like to scream her head off. But having him within arm’s reach after so many months spent trying to remember how it felt to touch him, and seeing him take in the sight of her, pale skin pulled tight across her cheeks beneath her sunken eyes and the Song in her ears so loud she’s surprised the rest of the world can’t hear it…it’s suddenly too much.

And so instead of screaming, she crumbles.

His reflexes are quick – a warrior to the marrow of his bones even though she can so easily see the King, too, in the proud set of his shoulders; in his back, spine straight and chin held high, but–

“This isn’t very kingly,” she says around a sob, the words pressed against his throat where his pulse leaps to meet them. He’s holding her weight, one large hand cradling the back of her head, and she can feel it shaking, even when he feels like the most solid thing in the world.

“No?” Alistair asks, light tone pretending at laughter, and she feels the drum of it against her chest. “Coming to my Queen’s aid – sounds very kingly to me. Spectacularly kingly, in fact. I imagine they’ll write songs about it. Betting on it, actually.”

There are so many things she should say, but what escapes her is, “Leliana wouldn’t dare. Not after the last one.”

He laughs – he _laughs_ , and Maker it almost makes her forget about the Song. “If it makes you feel better, her letters said nothing about your whereabouts,” Alistair says, trembling fingers curling tenderly around the back of her neck, as though just mentioning her absence could make her disappear in a cloud of dust if he’s not careful.

The words die on her tongue before she can speak them – that Leliana hasn’t seen her in a long time, and that if she had – if she’d seen how close to death she’s been walking, what the Song has made of her – she’d have sent him a crow on the spot.

She doesn’t speak a single word, but somehow she knows he still hears what she meant to say. And there’s a moment of silence where he just holds her, and she wonders – because she has to, because she’s been walking this road for too long – when she’ll wake up.

She counts his heartbeats in her head, savouring every single one and holding her breath for when it happens – that moment he’ll slip from beneath her, leaving an imprint on her palms that she’ll _almost_ be able to feel, if she concentrates. She’ll carry his ghost with her for days, like an ache behind her ribs.

She waits, but it doesn’t happen, and for a moment her confusion makes it hard to breathe.

“I’m not leaving,” Alistair says, as though he has a choice in the matter – as though a dream can have choices and make decisions. But it’s not to reassure her that he says it, Elissa realises. It’s a rebuttal. As though he expects her to try and send him back.

A dream wouldn’t care about that, she thinks.

She can still hear his heartbeat, although she’s lost count now of how many there have been. And he’s still solid under her fingertips when she slides her palms up his back.

She feels more than hears him draw a breath, and – “Give me an idea, love,” he says then, voice rough, and the words make her start, and – _Smelly socks,_ she wants to say, suddenly, just to see if it’ll make him smile. And then – _blood_ , she thinks, and wonders what he’ll think of the idea, of the woman who was once a Warden and the cure they’ve conjured from mere speculation.

She doesn’t question her sudden acceptance of his presence, or of his offered assistance. But then, she’s long since made peace with her selfish heart.

The Song is still there, but with the force of will that is her mother’s legacy she shoves it back, back into the dark corners it first crawled out from, and channels her focus towards the steady  _thump-thump_ of his heart, echoed in her own chest, until it’s all she knows and – “Okay,” she breathes, letting the word fall, not a surrender but a promise.

_Okay, you’re not leaving._

_And neither am I._

“Okay?” she repeats, a question this time, asking for confirmation, and she doesn’t even stop to consider the fact that she hasn’t exactly spoken out loud what she needs him to confirm.

But she doesn’t have to, and she feels his answer in the way his arms tighten around her, pulling her close until there’s no room for thought or doubt between them.

_Okay then._

And so, decision made, she drags another breath through her nose, and reminds herself that she’s not dead yet. Because it’s surprisingly easy to forget, when you’re living half a life.

“You know, I’d imagined you angrier,” she hears herself saying, the words muffled against the thick fabric of his travelling cloak.

A huff of breath against her ear. “I can stomp my foot and yell if it’d ease your conscience.”

Her eyes are wet, and her cheeks are hurting from smiling. “Maker but I’ve missed you.”

That trembling touch to the back of her head again, and his next breath is a shudder she feels in her bones. “See now, when you say things like that you’re setting yourself up for some half-hearted foot-stomping.”

“But you’ll yell a bit?”

Another laugh, and he makes it seem so _easy._ Like she could do it, too, if she tried.

“For you, my dear,” Alistair says, shoulders shaking, and there is a tell-tale wetness against her neck that makes her heart ache. “I’ll scream myself hoarse.”

She doesn’t laugh, but she wants to, and that’s a victory in and of itself, Elissa thinks. There’s still an inkling at the back of her mind – a thought pushing against the newborn memory of his face, with no sunken shadows and no pallid gleam on his brow. His eyes, bright and clear and not clouded with fever, as though the Blight is no closer to touching him now than it was ten years ago.

 _Blood_ , she thinks, distractedly, but she doesn’t have the mind to consider in full the connection her memory is trying to make.

Tomorrow, she decides. Tomorrow they’ll follow that lead, wherever it takes them. Tomorrow she’ll be Warden-Commander again. Not the Queen of Ferelden, at least not yet. Perhaps never again, but–

But. Perhaps allowing herself to be her husband’s wife isn’t too much to ask.


	2. bear your burdens with grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick thank-you to those of you who left comments on the first chapter; knowing that someone is interested in my terrible schemes is what inspires me to keep writing them. I hope you enjoy!

_Your wife is dying_ , the letter begins.

At first glance he doesn’t get further than  _your wife is_ – the three simple words like a slap and a caress all at once.  _Is_ , present tense, not yet lost to him forever. It sends his heart somersaulting into his throat, and his eyes trace the familiar, almost aggressive scrawl with something akin to wonderment, the bold lines cutting sharp against the paper. It had arrived by crow, straight to his chambers without passing through any other hands, but Alistair suspects it’s a good thing, and appreciates the privacy to  _feel._

_Your wife **is.**_

And despite the awful, sickening drop his heart proceeds to make into the pit of his stomach as he takes in the truth of the sentence as a whole, he feels a rush of absurd fondness for the witch when he reads the following line–

_She insists on shouldering this burden alone. I have deemed the decision a poor one._

She doesn’t explain in length, but then she doesn’t have to; he can imagine well enough what ails his wife. And so instead of words there is a map, and directions to their whereabouts. Several days of hard riding even if he hurries, across Ferelden toward the furthermost edge of the Korcari Wilds. A fool’s journey to make alone, for a king with crown and kingdom to think of.

He’s writing to Teagan before he’s finished the rest of the letter.

A new crow arrives the next day while he’s making his preparations to depart, and at first he thinks it’s another note from Morrigan, but when he breaks the seal the scrawl that pops out of the page is different, smooth and flowing, and he can almost hear the accent even though it’s been _years–_

_She is not well. I write this in the strictest confidence, as it is against her wishes. Although I cannot pretend to understand her reasons._

_–_  and his hands tighten around the letter, the paper crumpling under the force of his grip. And he’s reminded (although he’s never forgotten, not really) that she’d left without telling him. And if she’d have her way she’d keep him in the dark while she wasted away to the taint that’s killing them both. She’d made the decision to leave without consulting him, and would do the same with her life  _–_ would rather choose a lonely death than one by his side.

A knot of grief and fury sits like a weight in his chest, but every last shred of anger he feels leaves him in a rush before he’s reached the end of the next sentence–

_But, my friend, if she were honest, she would want you here. This I know._

There are tears pressing behind his eyes – anger again, and a reckless, almost terrible joy that makes him knock over the inkwell on his desk, and his sleeve is stained black and he’s left his crown on the nightstand when he sets out to hunt down Niall to let him know of his decision. All that’s missing to complete the picture is for him to have forgotten his pants, and the thought that  _she would laugh_   _hearing that_ is what spurs him on, until he’s all but running down the corridor.

His steward is a hawk-faced man, the vicious burn-scar climbing the length of his neck and jaw doing little to put people at ease, but he’s been part of the castle staff since Alistair’s coronation, and doesn’t even blink when his King, hair in disarray and a half-mad light in his eyes, hails him down to declare his intentions. The hard press of his mouth is one of disapproval, but the gleam in his keen eyes tells a different story – he’d served the Couslands at Highever before Howe, and is one of the few aside from the current Teyrn who remembers the Queen of Ferelden when she’d wrestle her Mabari in her smallclothes and drag mud in all over her mother’s carpets.

“Very well, Majesty,” Niall says simply, although Alistair knows it’s far from a simple matter. “When will the Arl be arriving?”

The rest of the staff is notified shortly –  _The King will be away on business of a delicate sort_ , or so the word goes, and Alistair feels the thrum of worry and curiosity as he walks the castle halls.  _Is it the Inquisition? War with Orlais?_

_Another Blight?_

Some will have guessed the true reason, but if they have they keep quiet. And the few who are told go about their business without a pause in their step, as though nothing has changed, and, he thinks, heart sitting high in his throat, his wife would be proudto see the loyalty their reign has inspired.

On the day of his departure he sets out before dawn, his gelding restless and dancing in place, sensing his rider’s state of mind. Some of the staff are there to see him off – the cook has stuffed his saddlebags with cheese, and honey-cakes (“For Her Majesty,” she’d instructed, with a stern look that told him she’d come along to personally guard them if she could), and someone has polished his old greaves and gauntlets with meticulous care. It’s not armour fit for a king, but then he’s not riding out as one, at least not officially. And anyway, he’s never felt comfortable in that kind of garb, like the elaborately engraved breastplates his brother would wear with such pride.

And there are many ways in which he is not his brother and never will be, but it seems to matter little to the people at his side now. It’s one of those memories he’ll keep forever, Alistair thinks – the looks on their faces, almost grieving as they watch him depart, devoid of crown and court regalia but King, still. Their King, off to find their missing Queen.

Ella – Elissa’s handmaid, a skittish, freckled thing who’s stubbornly kept his wife’s jewels polished and her dresses pressed for three years, as though she’ll be back at any moment – holds out a folded piece of cloth; a handkerchief, dotted with wildflowers.

He recognises it even before she says, “Her mother’s,” and for a brief moment the soft lines of her face are replaced with something harder. “She keeps it for luck. I was mending it when she–” She swallows, and pulls her hands back, to fist them in her skirts. “Please bring Her Majesty back.”

Alistair tucks the handkerchief behind his breastplate like a promise, and feels something strange push up his throat as he lifts himself into the saddle.

“Maker be with you both, Majesty,” the stablemaster says lastly, a gruff-but-earnest sentiment to a quiet chorus of agreement, and all Alistair can manage is a stiff nod. It’s strange, seeing his departure met with such honest apprehension, remembering a time where he wasn’t  _wanted._

The morning has dawned a rose-tinged grey by the time he’s out of sight of the city, his horse and the quiet chatter of the season’s late birds his only company. The two letters in his pockets weigh more than anything else he’s brought with him – more than the sword on his hip that he hasn’t worn in ages, and his heavy blue cloak. Her favourite, and he’d pulled it out on impulse, spurred by some foolish fancy that still exists in his heart, to look for ways to make her smile.

She’d left him. One morning he’d woken to find her gone, a letter on her pillow her only good-bye, and he should be angry, he knows, but all he can think about is the lovely arch of her nose and her fiercely stubborn heart; the grey of her eyes and that one slightly crooked tooth that shows when she smiles.

 _If you have any sense, you will come._ The witch’s words, not near so sharp as he remembers them.

 _We are running out of time._ The final line of Zevran’s letter, penned in a hurry. The  _we_ had leaped off the page, a reminder that, for all her attempts to ensure otherwise, his wife is not alone. But perhaps even more than that, it’s the promise of a _choice_  – his own, finally, to help shoulder the burden that’s been kept off his back for three long years.

She’ll be angry, he thinks, but can’t find it in himself to feel guilty. Because if it means she’s healthy enough to vocally disagree with his decision, he’ll take all the anger she can throw at him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the end there’s no room for anger between them, pressed so close together he feels every heartbeat and every breath as his own. It’s still not enough, not even close – not after three damn years, but he’ll hold her until she tells him to stop, Alistair decides.

But she doesn’t, and so he holds her with everything he’s got, until he can’t keep his eyes open any longer. And even then he’s reaching for her, determined to follow her beyond the waking world if he can. He’s come too far to let her slip through his fingers now.

“I’m not leaving,” he says quietly, to that soft place beneath her ear. The camp lies silent around them, the others fast asleep, all but Zevran, who keeps the first watch. And so he allows his eyes to slip closed, and counts her silent answers with every living beat of her heart.

_O-kay._

_O-kay._

 

 

* * *

 

 

If he dreams at all it’s forgotten with the first shiver of wakefulness, but he remains a few heartbeats longer in sleep’s grasp before he’s released, to a haze of foreign sounds and smells that it takes him a while to place. It’s been a long time since he last woke to earth and woodsmoke, and for one disorienting moment he’s twenty again, coming awake under an open, unblemished sky to a much simpler world.

But the moment is short-lived, and then the kink in his back is there to remind him, cheerfully, that sleeping on the ground was easier at twenty than it is at thirty-three, and the groan that slips from his lips is as involuntary as it is loud.

A string of realisations follows in rapid succession – horseback across Ferelden, a campfire at night, letters in his pocket and  _your wife is_ , and small hands fisted in his cloak with no intention of letting go – and he’s sitting up before he’s had the chance to reconsider the abruptness of the action.

But a glance down at the small shape tucked against his side assures him he hasn’t woken her, or any of the others. In fact, the campsite is quiet, and empty save for himself and Elissa. The other bedrolls have already been taken away, and someone has fed the horses and stoked warmth back into the fire.

It’s with care now that he extracts himself, and Elissa doesn’t stir where she lies, curled up on her bedroll, and something about the simple fact that she still sleeps like he remembers makes it suddenly hard to look away. One hand tucked under her cheek, her hair lies spread around her face, an endearing mess. It takes a surprising amount of effort not to reach out and run his fingers through it.

He eventually manages to tear his gaze away, only to jump halfway out of his skin when he suddenly finds himself face-to-face with a young boy.

“Maker’s _bloody_ –”

He’s swallowed the colourful words before they’ve made their way off his tongue, and the realisation of just whose boy it is that he’s looking at hits him with all the force of a physical blow.

But all the lad does is tilt his head curiously, observing him much like a bird might. He’s got his mother’s hair and complexion, but the soft round cheeks and the full lips tell a different story.

“Hello,” he says, voice young and bright, and so at odds with the keen eyes regarding him, Alistair can only gape.

And it’s – a little disconcerting, to be honest. The nose, especially. Of course he’s  _known_ , but knowing of the existence of something and being confronted with the living, breathing truth of said existence are two very different things.

And, “Hello,” is all he manages, a half-strangled noise that sounds more like a croak than a greeting.

But if he finds his reaction at all strange, the lad doesn’t let on. “You’re Alistair,” he says instead, with a bemused little smile. “Mother said you were a wool-head.” And then his eyes lift slightly, as though to check.

Alistair stops himself from pointing out that it’s probably the kindest thing she’s ever said about him, but before he has the chance to grope for something different to say, the boy continues, in a voice that sounds suddenly _ancient_ –

“Your blood sings its own song.” Then, curiously – “It doesn’t answer the call.”

Right. Sure. As if the conversation wasn’t already weird enough. “Oo-kay?”

He tilts his head again. “I recognise it,” he says, and seems pleased by the fact. “Mother said I might, even if it’s just me now.”

“Did she?”  _And what else did she tell you, exactly?_  “That’s – nice.”

“I see a decade on the throne has done little to improve your eloquence,” comes the amused drawl from somewhere behind him, and the boy looks up with a smile.

“Good morning, Mother.”

“Kieran,” Morrigan says, in a way that, bizarrely enough, sounds almost tender, and –  _Kieran_ , he thinks then, the first thought forgotten.

She offers a touch to the boy’s head, before moving past them both to place an iron pot above the fire, casually, as though there’s nothing at all strange about the situation.

If anything, it only gets stranger when Zevran arrives with an armful of firewood.

“She has slept through the night,” he observes, with a glance at Elissa’s prone form, and Alistair doesn’t think he imagines the flicker of relief in his eyes. But before he can ask, already dreading the answer, when the last time was she had a full night’s sleep, he’s distracted by Kieran speaking up.

“Uncle Zev,” he says, and Alistair’s brows jump, before a grin threatens to follow at the look of patient suffering that crosses Morrigan’s face. At his silently mouthed ‘ _uncle?’_ she narrows her eyes, but doesn’t speak up to correct the boy.

For his part, Zevran takes it all in stride. “Yes, niño?”

There’s an eagerness in his round-cheeked face that’s eerily familiar. “I set the snares, the way you taught me.”

“Ah, excellent! Let us go have a look. Perhaps we shall have rabbit for supper?”

Then they’re off, and Alistair follows their animated conversation as they walk away, still reeling from the morning’s onslaught of impressions. But his gaze lingers on the top of that small dark head, bobbing in time with his enthusiasm.

He’s only partly aware of Morrigan taking a seat across the fire from him, quiet and efficient as she sets about brewing the rank tea he’d once told her he wouldn’t drink if his life depended on it, to which she’d threatened to have Sten hold him down while she poured it down his throat. And he’s tempted to ask if a decade has improved her domestic skills at all, but as it is he’s too preoccupied to find his usual wit with ease, and so what eventually fumbles its way off his tongue is something else entirely.

“Is he always…observant like that?”

She slings him a look from across the top of the iron pot. “Kieran is curious by nature, if that is what you mean. Sometimes he makes observations without due consideration.” And, under her breath, “You of all people cannot fault him for that habit.”

“No, that’s–” He drags a hand through his hair, giving it a restless tug; a habit he’s adopted since growing it long. “He said something about – my blood. Singing, or – something. I just thought–”

She’s lifted her gaze completely now, clearly intrigued, but doing a good job at hiding it. “If you are referring to the circumstances surrounding his–” and he actually braces himself for what she’s about to say, “– _conception_ , you need not worry. He is a normal boy now, nothing more.” But her lips purse slightly, and he can’t tell if it’s a look of thoughtfulness or simply humour at his expense. “Although I suspect certain…gifts might still linger.”

She’s _looking_ at him now, offering the same thorough examination as her son, and it takes all he’s got not to visibly fidget. And her sudden scrutiny makes it difficult to feign casualness when he asks, clearing his throat, “So, does he…?”

“Know who sired him? Of course.”

“Ah. Right. That’s–” But he cuts himself off, entirely at a loss.

Morrigan only shrugs, unperturbed by his reaction. “He is a very practical boy. He asked, and I answered.”

Alistair cuts a glance towards the treeline, wondering at the lad’s gentle cheer. Knowing what it’s like to grow up without a father, he tries to imagine what he would have done, if the boy he’d been had been given the chance to meet the man who’d fathered him. Probably something reckless. Or spectacularly foolish. Nothing like Kieran’s easy acceptance anyhow, and suddenly he finds himself wondering if he didn’t miss it completely – if he’d somehow mistaken his disappointment for curiosity.

He doesn’t say anything, but his thoughts must show on his face, because the witch says, quietly, “There is more to family than blood, Alistair.”

And there’s none of the animosity he’d have expected, once – no anger that he’d imagine himself important somehow, beyond his initial contribution; that he’d think it would matter, whether or not he was present in the boy’s life. And it’s not a rebuttal, or even an accusation. Rather, it’s something else, vaguely familiar, and he remembers a moment, walking endless dirt roads with the sun on their backs and finding the smallest shred of understanding amidst barbed quips and comments; a slip of common ground for the lonely girl and the boy who’d all his life been stowed away like an afterthought.

“For what it’s worth, he does not blame you for your absence,” Morrigan continues then, a wry smile curling along her lip. “Ironically, a trait that is more yours than mine.” She casts a fleeting glance at Elissa, still asleep, and he remembers the letter  _– I have deemed the decision a poor one._ And it’s with a strange sort of clarity that Alistair realises he might not be the only one who felt betrayed by Elissa’s decision. How long did it take her to reach out to her companions?

Dragging her eyes away, Morrigan levels him with a look that he’d almost call soft, if he were a braver man. “I am – thankful,” she declares, meeting his eyes with the least acerbic look she’s ever given him. “For Kieran.” Another glance at Elissa, and the tightness at the corners of her mouth slackens somewhat. “’twas not an easy decision, I know. For either of you.”

He’s surprised to find that the first thing to leap to his mind isn’t a cutting remark. A decade ago it might have been, but now...“Er, well. Anything for a friend?”

Her snort is so startling, he’s not sure which of them it surprises most, although she’s quick to school her face back into its usual mien. But something settles – a silent understanding between them that all is well, and he feels his shoulders relax, even as the knotted muscle between his shoulder-blades chooses to cheerfully reassert its presence.

Dropping his gaze, he regards his wife, still fast asleep, and still within arm’s reach. And it’s a testament to the severity of her condition, Alistair thinks, that Morrigan hasn’t uttered a word about his silent fretting.

But for now at least, her breaths seem to come easy, and with her gently parted lips he can almost pretend the shadows on her cheeks are cast by her lashes, and not something else – that dark thing that lies beneath her skin, slowly pushing itself to the surface.

“How is she, really?”

Morrigan doesn’t answer, and for Alistair that’s answer enough. Instead she watches Elissa breathe, lips pressed to a hard line, and the lack of her usual self-confidence, her Maker-be-damned attitude, makes desperation push the next words off his tongue.

“Do you have a plan? A lead?”  _Anything?_  he wants to beg, and would if he thought it would help. He’d beg her to consult whatever dark tomes necessary to save his wife, but knowing Morrigan – and he does, he finds, with a calm sort of realisation – she has already exhausted all available options, and every magic, old or dark, in her possession.

But – “Perhaps,” she says at length, and his heart  _leaps_. “There is a mage at the College of Enchanters who may provide some answers. Although to what, exactly, I am not yet sure.”

“A mage?”

“A former Grey Warden. Supposedly cured of the taint.”

He blinks, sure he’s heard her wrong. “ _Cured_?”

He knows by the arched brow what’s going to come out of her mouth next. “Am I using words that are too difficult for you, Alistair? I can call Zevran over and have him mime it for you, if you wish.”

“Har,” Alistair retorts. “Just answer the question, Morrigan.”

“Your monosyllabic parroting of my own words, you mean?” But there’s no real bite in her remark, and, “Yes,  _cured._  Or so the rumour goes.” Her eyes spark with familiar light then, and Alistair is struck by the sense that she’s sitting on information she’s not inclined to share. “And not the only rumour, insofar as this particular mage is concerned.”

He’s almost afraid to ask. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Hmm,” is all she says to that. Then – “’tis curious,” she continues, sliding him a keen look. “How well you seem.” She lifts her cup to her lips. “Considering.”

It’s not an accusation, although part of him wouldn’t have been surprised if it was. He’s never pretended to understand her friendship with Elissa, but that doesn’t mean he’ll undermine it. To see her closest friend wasting away to the taint that should rightly be killing them both, he would have welcomed her animosity, although all she regards him with now is curiosity, but sharp and calculating in a way that reminds him keenly of her mother.

Of course, he’s wise enough not to voice  _that_  thought out loud.

And it’s not as though it hasn’t crossed his mind, that something’s not quite right with him. He might have been busy running a country, but it hasn’t escaped him, the thought of his impending death, as all Wardens are doomed to die. But when he’d seen Elissa across the fire the night before – her eyes almost too large in her face, and her skin stretched tight across her fine bones – there’d been an inkling, forgotten with the desperate press of her against him, that for some reason he’s reacting to the Blight differently than a Warden should. Although what that reason could possibly be isn’t something Alistair could even begin to guess.

As it is, he’s saved from answering – if he even has an answer beyond helplessly shrugging his shoulders – by Elissa stirring.

She wakes like he remembers, slowly and with more grace than should be allowed after sleeping in a curled-up position (he’s not sure he’d be able to unwrap his limbs if he attempted the same), lashes fluttering against her cheeks as her yawn unfurls with the rest of her.

“Morning,” she murmurs, voice rough with sleep, and his heart jumps like a fool’s thing.

“Morning,” he says, almost breathless, and sounding ten different kinds of ridiculous.

Morrigan offers them both a long-suffering look from over the rim of her cup. “And lo, one word and he is reduced to a simpering fool.”

Rubbing her eyes, Elissa makes an attempt to sit up, and Alistair has to keep himself from reaching to help her. And then he’s left feeling stupid for holding himself back when he catches the nervous glance thrown his way, across the small space separating them.

“Have you been up long?” Elissa asks, threading her fingers through her hair, which prompts a grimace. She’s cut it short – shorter than his is now, falling just below her ear to brush her jaw, still the same sandy-blonde, but with a touch of silver that wasn’t there last he saw her.

He remembers it slipping through his fingers, and her grinning grimace as she’d patiently pulled out pearls and baubles, silently lamenting the current fashion and wishing for simpler times, when her coronet was enough. There are no pearls or silver pins here, and no coronet to grace her brow, but there is still a Queen, Alistair finds, in the regal lift of her chin and the elegant line of her shoulders.

“Not long,” Morrigan says, and he starts, suddenly aware that he’s been staring at the top of his wife’s head.

Rising to her feet, Elissa does a stretch, making something in her back  _pop_ , and there’s something so achingly  _domestic_  about the gesture, for a moment it makes him forget where they are and when. And he’s half-expecting to hear Leliana singing from across the camp, the familiar lilt of her accent curling through the morning quiet–

“Where’s Zev and Kieran?” Elissa asks then, and the illusion shatters.

“Setting snares,” Morrigan says, with a shake of her head. “Next I imagine he’ll have him picking pockets.”

“There are worse skills,” Elissa counters, with something that sounds almost like ease, and it’s a fierce kind of relief he feels, discovering that he remembers the real thing well enough to tell it apart from this ghost.

There’s a moment of silence – truly, magnificently awkward silence wherein Elissa stands before them, as though uncertain of how to proceed; as though he’s tossed a stick into the churning mill-stones of their little group with his presence alone.

And for all the disarming attitude that is his legacy and go-to solution for awkward silences, Alistair can’t summon so much as a grin, and even half of one would have been preferable to the strained expression that must grace his features now.

“Well,” Elissa clears her throat. “I’m…going to go wash up,” she says, the stilted words a far cry from what he remembers – the Queen who’d parry smalltalk like sword-strikes, and who was never unsure of her answers.

He’s about to point it out in hopes that it might lure a smile to her face, but holds himself back again, uncertain for perhaps the first time in their marriage of what to say to his wife.

She catches his eyes when she turns to grab her pack, and there’s a look – a glance that lingers for the span of a single heartbeat, but then she’s gone, rubbing the final remnants of sleep from her eyes as she makes for the trees with restless, hurried steps.

There’s a full beat, and then – “Married over ten years, and you are a bigger fool now than you were when you were courting,” Morrigan observes. “Astounding. Truly.”

“Oh bugger off,” he mutters, but he’s already rising to his feet, back protesting, but he pushes past the discomfort as he makes to chase down his wife.

It won’t take him long to catch up –  _you walk like a Mabari_ , she’d told him once, laughing with delight.  _All loping, ambling steps._   _The only thing missing is a tail for you to wag –_ but where the ground slants towards the river he halts, suddenly unsure if he’d read her expression right, or if he’s simply seeing what he wants to see, after three years without her. And once again he’s twenty years old, awkwardly pawing a briar-rose and trying to convince himself he’s not doing something supremely foolish – that she’d welcome the gift for what it is, and perhaps even reciprocate his feelings.

He's been loitering for a good minute when he comes back to himself, only to realise what he must look like, standing in the middle of the Wilds, rendered inept by his own indecision.

“Maker’s breath, man, you’re married to the woman,” he mutters, dragging his palm across his face, and with his next inhale he’s pushed forward, down the mossy slope, gait sharp with intent and shoulders squared as though walking into battle–

– before he promptly stops, arrested by the sight that greets him on the riverbank.

Elissa looks up from where she’s crouched by the water, stripped above the waist and with rivulets of moisture painting patterns down her naked back, the droplets lit silver by the pale morning sun. But it’s not the sight itself that steals his breath – it’s her composure upon spotting him, not even pausing in her ministrations, although she tilts her head towards the river with uncharacteristic shyness, and Alistair proceeds to forget every word in his vocabulary.

“You always were so terribly earnest in your admiration,” she says then, stealing a glance over her shoulder. He watches with fascination the gentle shift of her shoulder-blades beneath her skin, and has to mentally backtrack so as to remember what she’d said.

She’s still watching him, and there’s a gleam in her stormcloud eyes that’s not quite a smile but damned close, and something inside his chest unfurls with a sigh.

“That’s hardly a wonder. You always were the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid eyes on,” he counters, the words as calm as his heart is now. “You still are,” he adds softly, and the expression that comes to settle on her face is a thing of such honest surprise, he can’t help the smile.

She drops her hand from where she’d been combing it through her hair, and he catches the slight tremble to her fingers, although she doesn’t make an effort to hide it. Instead she just looks at him, heart bared like the rest of her, and in that moment he doesn’t see the Warden-Commander or the Queen of Ferelden or even the Teyrn’s daughter she’d been that day when they’d first met, carrying her grief with her head held high and her heart buried deep.

Now all he sees is the woman he grew to love amidst the briar thorns, and the simple fact that she wasn’t buried as deep as he’d feared gives him the courage to chuck the rest of his foolish reservations and insecurities.

He covers the remaining distance between them without faltering a single step, bending on one knee to pluck the washcloth from her slack fingers. There’s a small piece of soap sitting by her discarded tunic, and he picks that up, too – the smell a plain, clean one, not the lavender she prefers, and the sudden, foolish regret strikes him, that he should have remembered to bring some with him.

He doesn’t linger long on the thought – she might not appreciate a reminder of the home she’d left (although to be fair, he’d brought her the biggest reminder possible). But instead of double-guessing himself he dips the washcloth in the cold water, wrings it, and lifts it to her skin. The grime of a long journey clings to the pale freckles on her shoulders, and she sinks from her crouch with a sigh as he drags the cloth across her back.

“I’m still having trouble believing you’re here,” she says after a pause, voice little more than a murmur. Lifting her hand, she touches her temple, the gesture a hesitant, pained thing. “Sometimes it’s so loud I can barely think past it, and I’ll see – things. Hallucinations. And yesterday I thought – when you were there, beyond the fire–” She swallows the rest of the words.

Alistair doesn’t still his ministrations, but his grip tightens on the washcloth. “I am here. You’re not going mad.”

Her laugh is a mockery of the real thing, half-hysteric and choked with tears. “Am I not?”

This time he does stop, palm splayed flat between her shoulder-blades, and he feels her  _heave_  at the touch, as though to catch her breath. “Elissa.”

She meets his eyes, gaze roaming his face, as though to memorise it. “You’re here,” she says, then shakes her head. “I can’t ask you to be here.”

“I wasn’t waiting for a request,” he retorts smoothly, wringing the cloth, before adding, “Or permission for that matter.”

She gives him a look that sparks with fond annoyance. “Some king you are.”

“A fitting match for my lady queen,” he answers glibly, and this time her smile comes so quickly he thinks she might have startled herself.

It’s gone before he’s had the chance to blink, however, and her sigh is a tremulous shudder. “Alistair, I just – I don’t know if I can do this.”

The washcloth is cool against his palm, and he channels his focus towards the pink tint of her newly scrubbed skin, and tries not to think about how _thin_  it feels – gossamer silk, but too frail for the woman it belongs to, who’d freckle and scar and bruise without a care. And there are a hundred ways to respond to her fears, he knows, but finds with a sudden, almost fierce determination, that he won’t treat her as though she’s as breakable as she looks. He knows better – knows _her,_ and so, “Is that…defeat I hear? From Elissa Cousland?”

She gives him a shove, and his joy is so bright and so sudden it spills out in a laugh. And – “Elissa Cousland-Theirin,” she corrects, eyes flashing with something old and dear, and in that moment it’s not natural silver that crowns her hair but a coronet of gold, caught in the morning sun.

Touching his fingertips to her back, Alistair follows the curving length of her spine, and watches her eyes flutter shut.

“I don’t know where to go from here,” she admits, as he wrings the cloth again. The repetitive motion helps take his mind off the unnatural pallor of her skin, moon-pale beneath the dust and grime when he wipes it away.

“That’s never stopped you before.” Feeling bold, he replaces the cloth with a kiss, and clamps down on his relief when she doesn’t flinch away, suddenly ashamed that he’d expected her to.

“ _Before_ I was a completely different person,” she counters. “I was nineteen and couldn’t sit still. All I knew to do was move forward. Now...now all I want to do is sit still, preferably for the rest of my life.” She presses her fingertips to her temple again. “Quiet, I miss – I miss the  _quiet._  I miss waking up before dawn, before the rest of the castle. I miss walking down in my dressing-gown to pilfer honey-cakes from the larder and eating them in bed.”

His smile quirks against her skin, quick and true. He thinks of the stale cakes in his saddlebags, but the smile falters when she speaks next, her voice choked with tears, “I want to go  _home_ , Alistair.”

It’s almost a plea, and he’s never heard her plead for anything, least of all for her life. For his, perhaps, and he thinks she might have, once. But now she speaks for herself, and some selfish part of him hopes the thought of home – of him, of  _them,_ what they were and can still be – might spur her into  _trying._

“Then let’s find a way.”

Another kiss, this time to her temple, and when he rises to his feet he offers his hand to pull her up. She spares it only a quick glance before accepting, fingers gripping his with surprising strength, and when he holds her tunic out towards her she pulls it on without protest.

“The College of Enchanters,” he says, while she’s busy lacing up the front of the garment, latching onto the idea with all he’s got. It might be all they’ve got to go on, and it might not be much but it’s _something,_ and right now he’d take anything so long as it doesn’t mean sitting on his hands while his wife wastes away before his eyes.

“That’s just a hunch,” Elissa says, brows pulling down in a frown that’s so familiar he’s tempted to smile. “And Morrigan said that it might be nothing–”

“You know, Val Royeaux is beautiful this time of year,” Alistair continues, and smiles when her cheeks puff up. For a moment he can almost imagine them flushed like they should be, and not like they are now, too pale to fathom.

The purse of her lips is as dear as the words that follow – “I’ve never known a heart as Fereldan as yours. Aren’t you conditioned to dislike everything about Orlais?”

He raises a brow at that. “Oh I’m the most Fereldan, am I? Whose father called her ‘pup’ until she was  _nineteen_ –”

She pinches his side, a reflex as old as their marriage, and for a split second it’s hard to tell which of them is the most surprised.

Then, grin curving, he thinks he’s never been happier than he is now, watching the very smallest of smiles lift the corner of her mouth.

“You haven’t changed,” Elissa tells him, voice thick with unshed tears, and in a way that makes it sound as though it’s the only thing in the world that matters.

She gives him a patient look when he unlatches his cloak to wrap it around her, but Alistair doesn’t miss the way her shoulders sink gratefully beneath the gentle weight of the fabric. It’s much too big for her small frame, and when she steps into his arms he buries his hands in the folds, tucking her against him. The top of her head doesn’t come any higher than his sternum, but she fits against him like she’s always done.

“I’m here,” he says again, for her sake more than his. He’d made up his mind before he’d set out from Denerim. “For however long the journey.”

He feels the trembling press of her palms against his back. “Teagan will have something to say about that, I should think.”

“Teagan is looking far too old for his own good, if you ask me. He could use a change of pace.”

“What, by running a  _kingdom_?”

A kiss against her ear. “He’ll manage.”  _As we will_ he doesn’t say, but imprints the promise on her very being with his embrace. “We’ll walk this road together.”

He hears her swallow, and knows already before she speaks what’s coming – has prepared himself for the words for longer than she probably thinks. “And if it should end in the Deep Roads?”

Pulling back a little, Alistair takes her hands, and is once again reminded of a different time, cradling a rose in his palms and thinking  _maybe._  And her hands are as he remembers them, small and slender, sword-callouses and all – a warrior’s hands, for all that they suggest a lady. He remembers holding them on their wedding day, and giving his vow. It’s not so different now, he thinks.

“Then it would be a King’s honour,” he says, tucking a silver-streaked lock of hair behind her ear, and watching her eyes widen, terrified and hopeful all at once, “to escort his Queen.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s well past noon before they’re ready to set out, a new chill in the air heralding the approach of autumn, and Alistair only spares a passing lament to his now missing cloak as he makes to cross the campsite to reach the horses.

Briar thumps his chest with her nose when he approaches, and he can’t tell if it’s a greeting or an admonition, but he sneaks her an apple in silent thanks, either way.

“You’ll carry her a bit further, won’t you?” he asks quietly, to which she gives a toss of her head that he’s tempted to take as a _yes,_   _as I’ve been doing this far. Where have **you**  been?_

“I see you still spoil her,” Elissa says, walking up beside him to give the mare a pat, and Alistair tucks the words beneath his tongue – that he’d give the horse a bloody knighthood if he could, for staying by her side the three years she’s been gone from his.

Instead what he says is, “Damn beast never liked me. I’m not spoiling her; I’m issuing a bribe.”

The look she gives him is unbearably fond, and he has the distinct impression that she wants to say something. But whatever it is, she keeps the words to herself, although she doesn’t move to put any distance between them, leaving them back-to-chest and with little room for thought. Still wrapped in his cloak, she cuts an endearing picture, her mare nosing the deep blue folds for more treats, but where it would once coax a full laugh from her lips, now it only makes her eyes crinkle softly.

Alistair helps her up in the saddle, his touch lingering by her knee as she settles in. He doesn’t have to, they both know that, but now that he’s started touching her it’s hard to stop.

“We are wasting daylight,” Morrigan reminds them from up ahead. She’ll shapeshift, Alistair suspects, and bites back the urge to ask what it’d take to get her in a saddle. He’s not feeling like making the journey as a toad.

A rabbit hangs from Kieran’s pony, and there’s pride in those small shoulders, straight and squared as he rides past them. Zevran lounges easily in his own saddle, his mare (named  _Thief_ for her habit of pilfering treats, a moniker he’s been told was Kieran’s suggestion) pawing the earth, eager to be off.

“To Val Royeaux, then,” Elissa declares, as Alistair’s gelding steps up beside Briar. It takes more willpower than he cares to admit to keep from reaching for her hand, seeing her fingers curled around her reins with enough force to turn her knuckles white. “I just hope it won’t be for nothing.”

“Oh I imagine we’ll find something,” Morrigan says, with a curiously knowing look tossed in Alistair’s direction that makes unease shoot up his spine like a snapped bowstring. But before he has the chance to ask – or to issue a protest, because the last time she looked at him like  _that_ he’d found himself playing bait for a Maker-damned dragon – she's gone, and a raven takes flight with a laughing screech, dark wings spread like a black grin against the open sky.

“That...doesn’t bode well for me, does it?” he observes, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun.

“Just like old times,” Zevran quips, nudging Thief into a trot.

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” Alistair calls after him, only to find laughter drifting back, but for all his unease there’s genuine warmth kindling in his breast, watching Elissa purse her lips to stifle a smile.

Her eyes are still too hollow, the deep-sunken shadows of her cheeks too dark under the noonday sun. But when she looks at him there’s something else there, too – a familiar resolve that alights in her gaze, blazing bright with sudden intensity. It’s the kind of resolve that could convince a man he could rule a kingdom – or what’s more, convince the world itself to change its ways.

And so, “Ready, my dear?” he asks, already knowing the answer, but he’s pleased (enormously, ridiculously _pleased_ ) when she meets his eyes and gives him everything _–_ every ounce of fear and grief and desperate hope that she’s kept from him for three years.

“I am now,” Elissa says, and for now it’s enough  _–_ more than enough, if it means she’ll have the strength to keep moving forward. But he’s got his sights set on more than just a temporary fix. He wants time, decades of it with her by his side. A foolish wish for a Warden to have, perhaps, but if she’s taught him anything, it’s that only a fool will settle for the cards fate has dealt him without a fight.

 _And are you a fool, boy?_ an old woman asks from across the years, gold eyes gleaming in a weathered face, and for a moment he can’t tell if it’s a memory or something else.

“Alistair?”

She’s looking at him now, gaze curious, and expectation sitting in the slight lift of her brows. And she’s waiting for him to catch up, he realises, and his stomach does an odd _flip_ in response.

Oh he’s a fool alright. A damned, ridiculous fool, if only for an entirely different reason than he’d feared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The wiki doesn't state where the College of Enchanters actually is, geographically, but Val Royeaux seemed a logical choice. If anyone knows differently, though, please feel free to point me in the right direction!


	3. re-learning old steps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So someone said the World of Thedas puts the College of Enchanters in Cumberland? But for the sake of this story let’s pretend it’s in Val Royeaux. Or, you know, imagine they have a faction in Val Royeaux or something. Hey ho and a bottle of artistic liberties!

The camp lies, the heart of a host of shadows, and quiet save for the usual nightly sounds of the wilds. _Enough to make a grown man shit his breeches_ she’d once heard said of the screaming foxes, and the eerie echoes that have no name. Morrigan doesn’t jump at small noises – this is her terrain, the wildness from which she was wrought. She knows every sound and the creatures they belong to, and every shade of every shadow that curls around tree and stone. And it would be a terrible thing indeed, the creature that should succeed in startling her heart from its easy calm.

This close to the Frostbacks the chill in the air has more to do with the mountains than the season changing, but it’s still a shock to the system after a relatively pleasant summer, to find herself tucking her fingers into gloves come nightfall. But the frost doesn’t reach beyond the ring of the fire’s light; a witch’s small magicks, taught to her long ago – little tricks to keep a fire burning just a little warmer, and for food to stay good a little longer. She hardly even thinks about it now; like breathing, it’s performed without thought, and if anyone should notice, they’re more likely to praise the Maker for small comforts, than question where they come from.

Across the fire her son sleeps, back turned towards the flames and his dark hair spilled on the bedroll, as quiet in sleep as in his waking hours. And there’s a thought, half-wry and only a twinge reluctant, that it is not her sole success that has inspired such a heavy, careless slumber. But she is grateful, however much it rankles her pride to admit it, that her son feels safe – that he should not know the fear she did, of the world outside her mother’s cottage. And that there should be people in his life – assassins and foolish, runaway monarchs – to inspire that lack of fear.

_Speaking of._ There are two empty bedrolls by the fire, untouched. She doesn’t know where the Wardens have tucked themselves away, but can only muster a fond sort of amusement at the thought. Thirteen years has done little to stamp out the stubborn sprig that had shot roots during the fifth Blight, and it’s – not the worst thing, to be privy to such ardent affection persevering in spite of truly abysmal odds.

She’d never admit it, of course. She doubts either of them would let her live it down.

Footsteps falling beyond the firelight drags her attention from her musings, but she knows these steps, this silent death’s grace like a cat’s slinking feet, and so she doesn’t so much as lift her gaze as Zevran steps in from the surrounding shadows.

“All clear,” he announces, careful to keep his voice low so as not to wake Kieran, before picking his way around the fire to take a seat. “I assume our Wardens will give a shout, should any of our ghoul-like friends be in the vicinity.” A small smile, dagger-sharp with mirth. “That is, if they are not caught with their pants around their ankles. Literally speaking.”

Her smile comes, too quick to stifle, but then it’s been months since she stopped trying. They’re not the people they were during the fifth Blight – her edges are not as sharp, and his good humour not merely a reflex. And she has no more reason to pretend herself infallible to his seductive wit, than he has to keep up appearances.

“So,” Zevran says then, after a lull. He’s pulled out one of his daggers to polish, but his attention is on Morrigan, his expression tellingly curious, and so it’s no surprise when he continues with, “You are hiding something.”

The first step of a familiar dance, for one who’s spent as much time at court as she has. “That statement holds true most of the time.”

A laugh, short but earnest, and nothing like what she’d hear in Orlais. “Indeed. But you have a look about you now. What is the saying – the cat that ate the canary?”

Her snort is a far less delicate thing than what she’d allowed herself at court, and it’s a small comfort, to be able to live so freely now. “I would sooner eat a nug.” And it’s not a dismissal of his query, but – still, she hesitates. Perhaps the years have made her soft, she thinks, to make her pause before revealing potentially incriminating information about a man she once wouldn’t have hesitated to toss headfirst into a swamp.

It’s with care that she finally says, “A rumour, of which I know many. An Orlesian court has more wagging tongues than hidden knives to cut them off. An unfortunate imbalance, unless one barters in hearsay.”

“Information makes for a powerful bargaining chip,” Zevran agrees. “Although something tells me this is not information you are looking to share for your own sake.”

A decade ago, perhaps she would have, out of nothing more than youthful spite. But a decade ago, Morrigan relents, she would not have exhausted her every resource to save the woman who’d accepted her mother’s request to bring her on her fool’s quest.

_Blood_ , she thinks again, tasting the word on her tongue, and all it implies. Potentially, all they’re walking towards is a complicated family matter, and truths that are better off not spoken. But it’s becoming clear by Elissa’s ever-failing health that they’re entirely out of other options, and Morrigan isn’t beyond blindly following her gut, so long that it doesn’t mean sitting on her hands.

She hasn’t shared her theory with Elissa, and with good reason – hope should not be offered lightly to the damned. But…perhaps she would not be remiss, to include another soul in her schemes.

“There are whispers,” she says then, eyes on the fire. Out of the corner of her eye she notes that Zevran’s hands have stilled in their ministrations, and she draws her certainty from the knowledge that, if anything, the information shared will not leave the ring of the fire’s light.

“’tis a near forgotten tale, of a journey to the Deep Roads. The story of an elven mage, and the grieving King Maric…”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“What about…Simmon?”

“Married, believe it or not. That kitchen maid, the one with the gap between her teeth?”

“What – really?” At his quick grin, she feels a smile of her own threaten. It no longer comes easy to her, but his presence has tempted more smiles in two days than she’s managed on her own in three years. It’s not a small feat, and thinking back on her own misery, it’s almost hard to imagine she’d made it this far on her own. “I’m happy for them.”

The forest is a crawling thicket of shadows and reaching branches, gnarled roots and odd noises, but the heavy dark is a welcome thing, somehow caging them in, and shielding them from the rest of the world. They’re supposed to be scouting the perimeter, on the lookout for darkspawn, but her blood is quiet and her Warden’s sense doesn’t pick out so much as a shiver in the trees. Even the Song isn’t as loud as it would be, in the night’s early hours with only her own heartbeat for company.

She’s often wondered, with her debilitating mental state, if the closer a Warden comes to their Calling, the keener their sense of the taint becomes, and the sharper their reflexes. Or if it only clouds the mind – makes it harder to distinguish between tainted and un-tainted, between enemy and friend, until she couldn’t have picked out a darkspawn from a common highway wastrel.

( _or from her own companions_ )

The thought is a dark thing, sitting heavy in her mind, but her husband’s cheerful presence at her side helps calm her nerves somewhat. And if anything lurked in the shadows, Elissa feels certain that Alistair would be able to pick up on it. But it does make her wonder how long she would have fared on her own, or even with just Zev and Morrigan. How long before she lost that final piece of herself?

_Don’t think about that now. They’re here, and he’s here, and you’re still you. You’re not dead yet._

Alistair is still talking, about the castle staff, and the things that have been going on in her absence. Nothing serious – nothing about the kingdom’s state of affairs or the Inquisition or the debacle in Redcliffe; things she ought to have been present to deal with, as queen. Instead he talks about everything else under the Fereldan sun – the thriving rose garden he’d had planted for their wedding, and Briar’s foal, a pretty full-grown mare now that he hasn’t had the heart to give away. Small, seemingly insignificant things, but to Elissa it’s the most important news she’s heard in years.

And it’s – familiar, bringing to mind similar nights, keeping watch together during the Blight, when he’d made her laugh so hard she’d forgotten, if only for a few moments, the grief that had weighed so heavily on her young shoulders.

“What about Ella?” she hears herself asking, after a lull. It’s been on her mind awhile. Orphaned during the Blight, the girl had had no one else, but with Elissa away, it would leave her position obsolete.

Alistair lifts a branch, allowing her to slip beneath. It’s almost easy, finding their way back to old routines, and moving around each other like they would, his hulking shape a familiar presence at the corner of her eye, and there’s a knowledge sitting in her very bones, of how he’d react at the first sign of danger. She knows he favours his right side, and the weight he puts behind his movements – knows down to the millisecond the speed of every move and strike and parry.

And he might be her husband first, but for the warrior she is to the marrow of her bones, the simple fact that she can trust him at her back is what allows Elissa to relax enough to forget about the Song, and the ever-looming presence of the taint in her soul.

She realises he hasn’t answered her query. Instead he makes to tug something from a pocket in his surcoat, a soft grumble of annoyance as he struggles, but then he’s holding something out toward her – something soft and gossamer that looks almost bright in the darkness of the wilds.

It takes her a moment to recognise it; with her gloves on, she doesn’t feel the fabric that would have been a dead giveaway, an almost transparent square of cotton, worn thin with age, and with small blue flowers stitched along the sides.

“My mother’s handkerchief,” she says, surprised, and remembering – she’d given it to Ella to mend, and forgotten all about it. There’s a fine row of stitches stretching towards the middle of the square-cut cloth, a perfectly mended tear, and alongside it someone has added little leaves and new flowers, to mask the mending.

“She’s taken care of,” Alistair says, although the presence of the handkerchief itself would have told Elissa that much. “She will always have a home in the castle, if she wants it.”

There’s something pushing up her throat, and it takes her a moment to find her voice. “I’m surprised none of the guards have tried their luck at asking for her hand.”

A snort, soft and fond. “Marron’s got his eye on them, the poor sods. I don’t think any of them would dare. She’s pretty favoured among the staff.”

Trembling fingers curling around the handkerchief, she’s tempted to tuck it behind her shirt, like she’d done once, pulling it out the few times she’d allowed herself to remember her mother, pressing her nose against it and letting herself be Elissa the girl, not the Grey Warden.

A sudden impulse grabs her – a foolish, sentimental thing, at least ostentatiously – and she reaches for his hand, fingers quick and not yet dulled by the taint wrapping it around his wrist. When she’s done her hands linger, idly fingering the knot.

“A token,” she says then, and would have forced a smile if she could have managed, but suspects that might send off some warning bells – she’s never been good at faking cheer _. Too practical of nature for easy falsehoods,_ her father had once said. “It seems – fitting, for such a quest.” _In case I forget_ is what she doesn’t say – what she can’t say, knowing keenly how he’d react to the words. And how could she tell him that the Song is so loud sometimes, she can barely conjure her father’s face in her mind? Her mother’s laughter? But…perhaps with the handkerchief in plain sight, it can anchor her memory. Perhaps she can look at it and remember her mother’s fondness for wildflowers, and Ella’s perfect stitches. Small, infinitely important things.

As expected, Alistair seems pleased by the gesture, but then he’d always had a heart for such things. “Then I’ll wear it with honour.”

She gives his wrist a squeeze, and when he trails quick fingers along her palm to wind her hand with his, she doesn’t pull away.

The night’s quiet creeps back in as they walk on, making an idle circle back towards the flicker of firelight in the distance. And Alistair doesn’t raise his voice to speak, but perhaps there are only so many things to divulge, of the goings-on of servants and castle guards.

They’ve yet to broach the subject of what Elissa has been up to in the three years she’s been gone, and the silence pools between them until it’s louder than the Song, and guilt makes her fingers twitch against Alistair’s. But he doesn’t press her with questions, even though she knows he must want to.

It takes her a moment to gather her courage, but she focuses on the handkerchief wrapped around his wrist, and reminds herself, firmly, that he hasn’t turned tail and left her, for all that she probably would have deserved it, if he had.

“Zev found me first.”

She feels the touch of his eyes, but doesn’t take her own off the path before them, curving through the thicket, almost indistinguishable from the other shadows of the forest. “One morning he was just there, walking into my camp with a rabbit at his belt and asking if I’d eaten yet.” Shaking her head, she adds, “I don’t know how he tracked me down, but I suspect a certain spymaster-turned-Divine might have had something to do with it. We had an exchange of correspondence, a little while back.” A shrug, but it does little to mask her unease. “Zev said he’d had some dealings with the Inquisition.”

“Right, the Inquisition,” Alistair says, in a way that’s usually followed by a sheepish anecdote involving the misplacement of his pants. “I’ve met the Inquisitor. Not…a good first impression, I’m afraid to say.”

It’s said with a grin, and Elissa finds her curiosity piqued. Along with her suspicions. “Do I want to ask what happened?”

He waves her off – or tries to, but the shrug of his broad shoulders makes the gesture awkward. “It was – you hadn’t been gone long. I wasn’t in a very good state of mind.”

“Oh.”

“And I, uh, exiled the mages. So, several acts contributing to poor foreign relations, committed in one fell swoop.”

She’d heard, of course. She’d been a good way from Redcliffe at the time, but royal decrees have a way of travelling. “And here I didn’t think you were a fan of swooping.”

“Ha,” he breathes. “And there’s still a very good reason for that.”

Her hum is an almost-laugh, like most of her gestures are only shadows of what they should be, and the tightened grip of his hand tells her it hasn’t escaped him. But there’s comfort in that, at least – that he isn’t expecting more than she has to give.

_Not yet anyway,_ a merciless thought sees fit to remind her, but Elissa shoves it back down before it has time to take root.

“So you explained how Zevran found you,” Alistair says then, and the distraction is a dearly welcome thing, despite the subject at hand. “What about Morrigan?”

Elissa lets loose a breath. “If you asked her, she’d probably tell you it was sheer intuition – some call of the wilds, but I have a feeling Leliana had a hand in that, too. Mor was an advisor to the Inquisition, for a while. It’s not something I could have seen her doing thirteen years ago, but if you’d told me then that she’d end up as an advisor to the Empress of Orlais, I think I might have swallowed my tongue laughing.”

It’s meant to lighten the mood, but she knows already by the tenseness in his shoulders that it’s going to take more than her poorly attempted humour to achieve that.

Alistair doesn’t immediately respond, and so she stops, waiting for him to follow suit, fingers tightening around his wrist with a sudden, fierce fear of letting go. But he doesn’t turn towards her, and she watches the broad expanse of his back, shadowed by the dark.

“Alistair, I didn’t – I didn’t intentionally leave only you out,” she says then. “I hadn’t meant for any of them to be involved, but then they were, and…and I was lonely, I don’t think I realised how much until Zev found me. And then Morrigan and Kieran were there, and...” And she hadn’t had the heart to send them away, not for their sake but for her own _. Selfish, so incredibly selfish_. But after so many months with only Briar for company, she’d been so starved of human companionship she’d been half-mad with it – even more than from the Song.

And the simple truth is, had she let herself involve him – had she let him have the choice to follow her, knowing he would – Elissa knows she wouldn’t have been able to send him back, if the time ever came to make that choice.

“Ali?”

Her voice doesn’t sound like her own – this terrible, too-soft thing she hasn’t heard since that first dark night on the run with Duncan, the glow of Highever in flames still visible on the horizon, and she’d curled in on herself and wept like a child. She’d been scared then, more than she’d been at any point during the Blight, and she’s scared now – terrified, that he would look at her and decide she’s taken more than she’s given, and that her choice not to include him was too much to forgive.

Then he’s turning towards her, expression half-hidden by the forest shadows, but she knows him, the arch of his brows and his straight nose; the lovely curve of his upper lip, and the absurdly long eyelashes she’s teased him for on a number of occasions. And she doesn’t flinch when he reaches out to touch his fingertips gently to her temple.

“I am glad you weren’t alone,” Alistair says, and she leans some of her weight against his hand, relief making her knees shake.

“Would you have told me?” he asks then. “If they hadn’t sent those letters. Would you ever have told me what was happening to you?” But there’s a stern press to his brow that tells her he already suspects what her answer will be.

And so, “I don’t know,” she says, honestly, the words small things in the darkness. “I had hoped to spare you that knowledge. I’d hoped to spare you all, but that didn’t really work out the way I’d planned.”

“Hm, no,” he says, mouth quirking just a little bit. “It’s that thing called ‘friendship’, I think. Dastardly persistent. Like fleas – hard to get rid of once you’ve got it.”

“I wouldn’t let Morrigan catch wind of that comparison if I were you,” Elissa says, almost-smile so quick and sudden it might have been the real thing. “Spiders eat fleas, you know.”

A thought presents itself then – one that’s been at her heels for the past few days, ever since his arrival, but there hasn’t seemed to be a natural moment to bring it up.

_No time like the present, as this seems to be a night for ripping open old wounds._ “So,” she says, carefully. “What do you think of Kieran?”

He gives her a _look_ , and – oh, it’s not going to be a straightforward thing, she knows that even before he says, “I could ask you the same thing.”

Fond irritation jumps in her chest, so familiar she almost chokes on it. “Don’t avoid the question by tossing it back at me, Alistair Theirin. I asked you first.”

A hand pressed flat against his chest, mock-hurt bright and animated on his face. “You know when you say my full name like that, it’s like I’m back in the Chantry. I swear, Sister Elissa, I didn’t push anyone into the pig’s trough. Honest.”

She reaches for his waist, but she’s not quick enough this time. No, he’s expected this, and evades before she’s managed to pinch him, a burst of laughter spilling from his mouth, “Oh no – not this time! I’ve seen through your tricks, ladywife. You have to be quicker than that.”

Her huff of irritation lacks any real bite, and all it does is make his smile widen. “Maker’s breath, are you five years old?”

“Yes. Give or take about thirty years.”

She makes another swipe at him, but he dances out of the way, manoeuvring his bulk with ease, and before she’s managed to lift her hand for another attempt he’s caught her wrists, trapping her hands in the small space between them with so little effort she’s almost affronted. Perhaps she is getting slow, and there’s a quip at the tip of her tongue, that isn’t he supposed to be the one who’s been sitting on his ass for three years? But she swallows it before she’s had the chance to fully consider speaking it, knowing the implications would taint the smile still stretched across his face.

“You know,” she says instead, looking up at him where he towers above her, grin wide and bright in the still-gathering dark. “You could have just said you didn’t want to talk about it.”

His smile softens at that, and he lowers the hands gripping hers, until they’re slack between them. “It’s not that.”

Elissa curls her fingers towards her palms. “Then what?”

His expression changes into something she can’t quite place – a rarity, after thirteen years of marriage, and almost enough to stun her. “I’ve sort of already broached the subject with Morrigan.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

She purses her lips. “And?”

“And…? I didn’t want you to think I’d – there’s already a lot of history there. Really _weird_ history, and I don’t know, is it – are you–”

“Am I okay with it?” she asks, seeing no reason to beat around the bush now that it’s finally brought into the open. Although the fact that he’d been so reluctant to discuss it for her sake, makes something clench in her chest.

_Sweet, foolish man._

Alistair nods, and Elissa considers the question – and Kieran. “It was a bit strange, at first,” she admits at length. “Knowing that he’s…well, _yours_.” And Maker, but she doesn’t know if she will ever be able to think that without feeling that ugly twinge of jealousy. “I always knew, and part of me was always aware that he existed somewhere.” Once, during those first few years of their marriage when they’d tried for children, it had been all she’d been able to think about. She’d resented Morrigan then, for a time – a thought that gives her no small amount of shame now. “But I never really accepted it until I met him.”

A small smile then – so small she wouldn’t have thought of it, were it not for Alistair’s look of surprise. “It’s not hard to accept him. He’s an incredibly sweet boy, and I feel guilty sometimes, that he was conceived from selfishness. My own more than anyone’s.” It’s not her proudest legacy, the lengths she’d been willing to go to in order to ensure their survival. The folly of the young, perhaps, but thinking back, and the ten years they got together, Elissa can’t say she would make a different choice now.

But, “He’s innocent, and clever and kind. The circumstances of his birth doesn’t change who he is, or how he should be perceived. Whatever he was once.”

She looks at him then – at her husband, who she’d once given those very words to. He’s watching her closely, and there’s another truth sitting on her tongue, begging to be spoken, even as she quails against it. But there’s part of her – the part that’s never shied away from difficult situations, but would seize up adversity like a physical opponent– that steels itself, ready for the honest truth, and whatever it brings her.

“Sometimes,” she begins, a sigh loosed into the quiet that rings loudly in her ears. “Sometimes I look at him and I wonder what a child of ours would be like. And…I think one of my greatest regrets is that I’ll never know. Although I suppose it’s for the best, things being what they are.” It had taken every ounce of strength in her to leave Alistair behind; Elissa doesn’t think she could have managed, had they had a child.

“What if we find a cure?” Alistair asks then, and the question drags her back – from thoughts of round, rosy cheeks and curling blonde hair.

“What?”

He shrugs, as though it’s not an impossibility that he’s offered so casually. “If you’re no longer a Warden, then there’s no reason why we couldn’t try for children.”

Elissa swallows, but the lump in her throat persists. “You’re hinging a lot on a very big _if_.”

Another shrug, but he’s squared his shoulders – a staggeringly decisive gesture, for the man who’d once said he’d be happy to follow orders, not make them. “I’d rather do that than accept defeat before we’ve tried.”

Despite herself, a wet sound leaves her – a sob or a laugh, it’s hard to tell. “You sound like a Cousland.”

His answering smile is everything. “High praise, from the most Cousland of them all.” And it’s only when he reaches out to brush his thumb against her cheek, that Elissa realises she’s crying.

“Oh, blast it.” But when she reaches to wipe away the wetness he’s tugging at her hands, pulling her closer, and when she tilts her head he leans down to catch her mouth in a kiss.

It’s a little sloppy – _like their first,_ she thinks, with a burst of near unbearable lightness in her chest that threatens to spill out of her mouth. But then he’s dipping his hand into her hair, and she’s following, yielding to small movements as she re-learns what it means to be kissed by him – the little touches that make him grin against her mouth, and the arch of her back as she stretches to her full height to better reach him.

A shiver shoots along her spine – anticipation, long forgotten and dearly rediscovered – and the hitch in her breath is an offering claimed with almost boyish eagerness. And it’s familiar and unfamiliar all at once, something that’s not quite the ease of their marriage, but that more resembles those first, stumbling steps of their early courtship.

It had been so easy back then, claiming small moments for themselves, usually behind the relative privacy of a closed tent flap. But there’d been the occasional instance, Elissa remembers, with the presence of their companions too much to bear, when they’d snuck off to find a secluded spot, hands wandering and learning, and returning later, cheeks flushed and lips bruised, and pine needles sticking out from odd places.

It had mattered little then, the hard dirt against her back and her trousers pulled down to her knees, all discomforts and small embarrassments dispelled by the awe on his face when he’d taken her in. But something makes her pause now, thinking of those moments. And even remembering his reaction from the day before when he’d found her by the river, uncertainty makes her hands fumble, and she’s never been more aware of her own body, as though she’s nineteen again and laying herself bare for the very first time. Except that when she’d been nineteen she’d been healthy, not grey-haired and gaunt, and with too many shadows and hard edges; baring herself before his eyes hadn’t been all that hard when the initial nervousness had worn off, but now…

Thinking about his potential rejection makes it suddenly difficult to breathe, and her fear must bleed into her movements, because then Alistair is the one drawing back. It’s too dark to read the expression in his eyes, but disappointment – at herself, at her own damn insecurities – drops like a rock to her stomach.

“We should head back,” Alistair says then, the palm of his hand curved along the arch of her neck, where her pulse leaps faster than it’s had in months, and regret suffocates her earlier anticipation when he adds, “It’s a long way across the mountains, and you need whatever rest you can get.”

She wants to scream – anything, mostly just to force the sound past her lips, but all she manages is a stiff nod.

“Elissa.”

She’s watching her boots, but the quiet utterance coaxes her gaze to lift, until it finds his. “You don’t have to be ready yet,” he says, and there’s understanding in his tone and the touch against her neck, but then of course he would be understanding – she can’t imagine he’d be anything else, and it kills her, because he’s forgiven her for the world already and she can’t keep adding shit to the pile.

And she wonders suddenly, with a terrible realisation, if that will be it – if he will be so understanding and so forgiving he’ll eventually become indifferent. That there will be a day when he’ll look at her – fully clothed or not – and feel nothing at all.

A nudge against her chin then, tilting her head, and the grin he offers is so fierce and so shameless it steals her breath. “But…tell me when you are?” he asks then, with that same note of eagerness she remembers, that barely-contained delight in small things, good cheese and clean socks and crisp autumn weather and _her_ , just for being.

And it’s impossible not to be affected by a look like that – that boundless enthusiasm befitting a much younger man, an adolescent just having discovered the pleasures of the flesh, directed at her despite everything. And for the first time in months – _years_ , she thinks. _It’s been **years**_ –

all Elissa can do is laugh.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They’re ready to depart a little after dawn’s break, the hint of frost in the air manifesting in a dusting of crystal in the grass, and on the early autumn leaves.

Elissa sits in her saddle, Alistair’s cloak around her shoulders, and watching the air curl white before her face. It’s going to get colder the closer they get to the Frostbacks, and she keeps an idle few minutes mapping out their route, and the supplies they’ve brought – their clothes and weapons, potions and poultices. She’s always been terribly practical – her father’s words, and Fergus’, but the latter spoken with teasing in mind – and it’s a welcome distraction for her thoughts as the others busy themselves with preparations. Because underneath her relentless cataloguing of supplies there’s the taint, ever-present, clogging her veins and her airways, and if she allows herself to think about it long enough–  

“Auntie Lis.”

The gentle voice reaches up towards her, and she’s brought out of her thoughts to find Kieran nudging his pony alongside Briar.

And the epithet (Zevran’s idea, that, stitching together a would-be family from scraps) makes her shoulders relax a little. She hadn’t lied to Alistair when she’d said it wasn’t hard to accept the boy, and there’s little left of the ache that had been there once, when she’d been newly married and each new month brought disappointment, and she’d found her mind drifting to Morrigan and her child ( _her husband’s child_ ).

She can’t quite bring herself to smile, although that’s no fault of Kieran’s. And he’s never held her sorrows against her – _he has an old soul still_ , Morrigan had told her once, oddly wistful. A boy beyond his years, for better or for worse, and sometimes Elissa has caught herself wondering if he’s perhaps more aware of what is going on, than what they have shared.

Her impending, gruesome death, amongst other things.

But she tries – for him, she _tries_ to smile, when she’s all but given up for anyone else. “All set to leave, Kieran?”

“Yes. Mother says one mustn’t dawdle.” And it’s spoken in such a matter-of-fact way that Elissa almost does smile in truth, knowing that, with more than just herself and Kieran to account for, it has taken some time for Morrigan to get used to moving at a different pace.

A small hand is lifted towards her then, palm curved and holding a square of burgundy cloth, wrapped carefully around a handful of orange berries.

“Cloudberries?” And her delight is genuine – perhaps because of her earnest surprise. “It’s a little late in the season for them.”

His smile is boyish – bright but careful. Not a lad for loud gestures, but his joy is true all the same. “I picked them yesterday. Mother said you like them.”

He proffers the bundle again, and it takes her a moment to respond, to startle out of her surprise, but then she’s bending down to accept it, curling protective fingers around the gift. “Thank you, Kieran.”

That smile again, lovely and guileless. “You’re welcome,” he says, and with a quiet click of his tongue he’s steering his pony forward, the long, shaggy tail of the small beast almost dragging along the ground. “Come on, Tadpole.”

A sigh from behind her then, before Morrigan is there, wrapped in her dark travelling cloak. “The name,” she explains, at Elissa’s look. “In a fit of anger, I once threatened to turn it into one. I regret it now.”

“The anger, or giving him the idea for the name?”

A dry look, but her smile quirks. “Both.”

Elissa gives a shrug. “It’s strangely fitting. He has a way with names.” She remembers once, a small hand stroking Briar’s nose, and _you’re_ _softer than what you’re called. I think I would have named you Briar-Rose. But there’s a reason you’re hard, isn’t there? It’s easier for her if you are._

“Mm. A gift of sorts, I suppose,” Morrigan murmurs. Then, with a glance across the camp to where Alistair and Zevran are saddling their mounts, “We are never leaving the valley at this rate.”

“It’s very much like old times, isn’t it?”

A snort. “I do so love to reminisce of days spent dawdling our way across Ferelden.” But her wry humour gives way so something darker, and her expression shifts. “We were pressed for time then, ‘tis true, but I fear it is a more pressing matter now than ever.”

Elissa doesn’t need to ask what she’s referring to, and feels the weight of Morrigan’s gaze – not quite an accusation, but close. “I’m not dead yet,” she says, although the rebuttal lacks conviction, but if she notices, Morrigan doesn’t let on.

“And you will endeavour to keep it that way,” she counters, and – “If they are not ready to depart in five minutes I will turn them both into loaves and stuff them in your saddlebags.” And before Elissa can reply she’s off, gliding with that eerie wilds-born grace across the campsite.

Briar gives a toss off her head, as though in agreement, and, popping a berry in her mouth, Elissa allows the quiet of the forest to ease some of the tension out of her spine, thinking about the long road that lies ahead of them. Not just across the mountains and the Highlands, but beyond.

And moreover, beyond whatever they find in Val Royeaux.

 

 

* * *

 

 

In the end, she remembers little of the journey across the Frostbacks.

There’s the cold, ever-present and biting against her skin, and no amount of wool or furs can keep it from reaching her bones. Briar carries her nearly all the way – the rest, she walks, steps slow and measured and driven by an innate stubbornness that makes her remember her mother, and leaves the taste of blood on her tongue.

And then she can’t rightly tell what drives her – the Song, perhaps, in part. The large, familiar hand beneath her elbow, lifting her back up whenever she stumbles, snow seeping through the fabric of her trousers, but she can hardly feel the cold, now. She feels the taint, and the Song, and she’d rather dance, she thinks hysterically, laughing into her scarf, than walk another step.

But she does walk, every muscle aching with the effort of simply _existing_ , and the taint pulsating in her veins, but she’s not dead, not yet, and so she pushes onwards until they’ve put the clinging permafrost of the Frostbacks behind them in favour of the gentle greenery of eastern Orlais.

She could sleep for a year, but despite her exhaustion there’s a restlessness in her that urges her on – that pushes and pulls, not in the direction of their destination, but deeper, down through earth and stone towards some indeterminable place she knows in her soul. She can’t bring herself to mention it to the others, but when she wakes from her nightmares, screaming and retching her guts out, there are warm hands on her back, in her hair, the touch anchoring her, and keeping her mind from reaching for the seductive call within her.

Their arrival in Val Royeaux comes as a small relief. It’s a quiet affair – she’s wearing neither crown nor Warden armour, and to the milling crowds of the Orlesian capital they’re nothing more than weary travellers – an odd group if you stop to look, but no one spares them as much as a second glance.

It’s warm for the season – almost too warm, compared to the cold they’ve come from, and it’s not long before she’s handing Alistair back his cloak, and itching to get out of her thick surcoat and heavy greaves. But she’s too tired to even bother trying – is too tired to take in the splendour of the gilded city, the curving walls of blue-and-white and the rich red fabrics spanning the courtyards, smelling of flowers and tobacco.

She loses track of where they’re going soon after they’ve passed through the gates, and lets herself be steered down street after narrow street lined with pale cobblestones and gold plaques. Alistair’s presence is a constant at her side, and Zevran keeps up most of the conversation – mostly to compare the splendour with what Antiva has to offer – and she’s dozing in the saddle before they’ve reached their destination, the Song quiet for once, dulled by the relentless press of city sounds and smells against her senses.

Then – a blessedly cool foyer, the crackle of magic in the air, and the thriving heart of the city quiets to a gentler pace. It’s a surprisingly modest room for Val Royeaux, although the marble floors and the gilded banister of the staircase curving towards the upper level hint at, if not outstanding wealth, then a very generous benefactor. Heavy draperies hang along the walls, and curls of fire flickers in coloured glass globes suspended from the ceiling.

Once inside, she sinks against the nearest chair, focusing on breathing through her nose. It’s a sickness in itself, feeling so weak from something as simple as travel, and there’s a stern voice at the back of her head that sounds very much like Leliana’s, chiding her for pushing herself too hard. She could have asked for more breaks, to make camp sooner, and not to set out at the crack of dawn. But it’s been difficult enough just adjusting to her failing body, and admitting to needing more rest smacks too much of defeat for her to swallow so much as the thought of it.

Footsteps on the marble, and then Morrigan is striding through the doors, staggeringly at ease amidst the Orlesian finery, and Elissa finds the thought suddenly bizarre, that this woman grew up in a cottage in the wilds.

“I have secured us an audience,” Morrigan states. “t’would seem my name still carries some weight, after my time at court.”

“What ruler in their right mind would give her court influence?” Alistair mutters, and Elissa manages a tired shadow of a smile, although it feels even more of an effort than usual, as though every twitch of her muscle demands too much.

“How are you feeling?”

His concern is familiar – expected, but it still causes her stomach to flutter. “Tired, but that’s the journey, not – not the other thing.” And she knows the taint intimately enough to recognise the particular exhaustion it carries. It’s a small relief then, that it’s not that she feels now.

Alistair doesn’t look entirely convinced, and Elissa catches Morrigan’s frown from across the room.

“I’m sitting down,” she says, as though to answer the silent admonition.

“You persist in pushing yourself beyond your capabilities.” And, with a glance at Alistair, as though he’s somehow the culprit, or at the very least an accomplice, “We could have taken an extra day.”

_I don’t think I have many extra days to spare_ , Elissa thinks, but clamps down on the words. “But we didn’t, and we are here now and I am still conscious. Small victories, Mor.”

“Victories that will mean little in the long run, if crushing defeat is what your stubbornness earns us.”

Someone brings them glasses of iced wine, but Elissa can barely stomach the taste, although the cool trickle down the back of her throat is a small blessing.

“You could always water the plants with the rest,” Zevran offers, catching her staring into her glass, and Elissa lifts it in a mock salute.

“I don’t think the plants would appreciate it. Or the poor sod in charge of keeping them alive.”

“You give the wine too much credit,” he laughs. “I, however, know wines that could truly kill.”

“Would that be because they’re laced with poison?” Alistair deadpans, and Zevran’s quick grin promises a story – although if it’s about truly fantastic wine or the victim of some spectacular assassination, Elissa will never know, because whatever he’d been about to say is interrupted by the arrival of someone at the top of the stairs.

The mage is an elf – small of build and slender-limbed, but with her shoulders squared beneath the fall of her heavy robes she cuts a larger figure than she is, stepping down the staircase to where they’re waiting. There are streaks of grey in her sable hair, and she carries herself with a grace that makes Elissa remember that she is the Queen of Ferelden, and her shoulders straighten reflexively, feeling suddenly inadequate in her worn travelling leathers. At least her husband poses a finer figure with his deep blue cloak, but they are so very painfully Wardens, not monarchs, tired from travel and the long road.

But then, lifting green-grey eyes to take them in fully, this odd group of travellers that’s come calling, just when Elissa expects her to speak –

She stops, as though arrested, and her carefully controlled expression slackens into one of disbelief. It pushes her brows upward, and for a moment all Elissa sees is _grief_ , etched into every line of her face.

It’s gone a moment later, however, banished with her next breath, and leaving Elissa wondering if she’d imagined it all.

“I–” She clears her throat, her voice a lovely, deep thing, accented and lilting. “I was unaware that when they said there were Grey Wardens requesting my presence, it included the King and Queen of Ferelden.” Her look graces across them both, and something inexplicably sad enters her eyes. “Your Majesties. It is an honour.”

Elissa readies herself to speak – groping for her Queen’s voice, the one that had once come so easily, and that she remembers still, if she concentrates. But she doesn’t get to say anything at all, because – “ _You_ ,” Alistair says then, and whatever greeting she’d been grappling for slips through her fingers with the tell-tale drop of his voice.

“You’ve already met?” Elissa hears herself ask, blinking. She knows that voice – that too-rough tremor of suspicion that comes so easily, because for all her husband’s humour and good nature, it’s a wary heart he gave to her to keep. Quick to trust when given a good reason, but without one–

_Don’t answer her. She looks Chasind, and that means others may be nearby._

_You’re taking the assassin with us now?_

She looks at the elven mage – the softly tilted eyes and the slim mouth. At twice her age, she carries her years with more grace than Elissa, but her countenance wavers when Alistair levels her with a hard look.

“Briefly,” he bites off the word.

“It was under less than ideal circumstances, I grant you,” the mage says, gently, and there’s that flicker of grief again – inexplicable, and gone before Elissa can puzzle out its meaning.

“And by that,” Alistair says, shoulders stiffening, arms crossed over his chest, and – and he looks a _king_ now, but a harder king than the one she left, three years ago – “She’s referring to how her actions led to the mages’ exile from Ferelden.”


	4. fight or flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had some extra time to write this weekend, and since this story is practically living in my head now, I figured I might as well take advantage. So have another update, lovely folks! And thank you so much to those of you who've left comments on this thing; I swear I'm either cackling or tearing up whenever I look in my inbox, and it's the best thing.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

The words fall with damning conviction, leaving Elissa feeling as though all the air has been sucked out of the room, and any hope that their request would be met with assistance plummets to her stomach along with her heart.

But the elf only straightens her shoulders, her hardened expression telling stories of far worse insults, and then she’s turned her gaze from Alistair to Elissa. “You may call me Fiona,” she says, in a way that could almost be called _breezy_ – as though shrugging off the ire of the King of Ferelden requires no more effort than dealing with a put-upon commoner, although there’s still the lingering hint of sorrow in the tight press of her mouth.

Her eyes are inquisitive as they take her in – keen, and curiously searching. “And you are the fabled Hero of Ferelden,” she observes, and, “Your Majesty,” she adds, but where Elissa expects mockery she finds none, only a solemn sort of deference.

And it’s been a long time since she’s heard someone toss either of her titles around. “Elissa,” she offers instead. “Please.”

“Elissa, then,” Fiona says, an old wistfulness in her voice. “I have heard much of your exploits.”

“All of them?” Zevran quips, and Elissa almost smiles.

“I certainly hope that’s not the case,” she offers, and makes to rise from the chair, but Fiona only holds out a hand.

“Please, do not rise for my sake. I can see you are wearied from your journey.”

She must know that’s not what ails her – must recognise her sunken eyes, and her pallid, almost mottled complexion. But if she’s pretending not to, Elissa can’t tell if it’s because she’s being courteous, or simply because she does not wish to broach the subject of the taint.

Of course, if that's the case, it makes the reason they’re here a little awkward.

“Now,” Fiona says then. “If I may ask, what brings the monarchs of Ferelden here to Val Royeaux?”

Alistair says nothing, reluctance and suspicion evident in the line of his shoulders, the tightly-coiled muscles of his back, and Elissa can only shake her head, fond irritation jumping in her chest.

Fiona sighs. “You may not trust me,” she says, to Alistair this time. “But I did what I thought was best, at the time. I regret the outcome, but you must understand that we did not have many options, in light of the mage rebellion.” An old look shifts across her features, and she adds, quietly, “Sometimes, desperation prompts us to make truly desperate decisions.”

“I understand,” Elissa says, before Alistair can speak. “That’s also in part why we’re here.”

Those dark brows lift, and she’s curious despite herself, Elissa can tell. Perhaps because she can see just how desperate they are, and there’s an inkling at the back of her mind, that she should be careful in divulging this information – that in the wrong hands, the knowledge that the Queen of Ferelden is dying of the taint might have dire consequences.

 _People go to war for infinite reasons, pup_ , her father had told her once, when she’d been young and bright and not yet wise in the ways of the world. _A single sign of weakness is all one really needs._

But something tells her that, whatever she might hold against Alistair for exiling the mages, the former Grand Enchanter is not the sort to barter information for fame. To save her people, perhaps, but at this moment, Alistair and Elissa are the ones at Fiona’s mercy, not the other way around.

Alistair must have come to the same conclusion. “You’re cured of the taint,” he says, the clipped words almost close to an accusation, and spoken before Elissa can piece together a more diplomatic approach. “How?”

“Dios mio,” Zevran sighs, and Elissa spies Morrigan shaking her head. But Fiona only blinks – surprised by the question, but not affronted. Not visibly, anyway.

“I had thought that was common knowledge,” she says then, and she’s careful now, Elissa sees – gauging them for ulterior motives. “I returned from the Deep Roads once, and it was gone. They ran every test imaginable, but as you can see for yourselves, I am no longer a Grey Warden. I have not been for some years now.”

Her gaze lingers a moment too long on Alistair as she says it, and for the life of her, Elissa can’t reconcile the sorrow on her face with her words.

Fiona looks at her then, mouth downturned. “It is killing you.”

Elissa nods. “The Calling comes for all Wardens,” she says, wrapping her tongue around that old truth they all keep in their hearts. Well – almost all of them; the one exception stands before her now, and Elissa can’t sense so much as a trickle of the taint in her veins. “But – I’d hoped–”

A sigh, heavy with understanding, and, “You had hoped I could help you,” Fiona says before she can finish speaking. “But if it were so – if I had the means, I would have shared my knowledge already. But I regret to say that I do not know why I was cured, or how.”

And with that, her hope – that frail, lacework armour that’s built around her heart over the last week and a half – cracks and crumbles. And Elissa finds her expression reflected in Fiona’s eyes, her grief a frightfully earnest thing, and something within her settles – a knowledge that sinks, quickly but quietly into her bones.

_I guess that’s it, then._

But – “Are you sure there’s nothing you can do?” Alistair is asking then, stepping forward, but Fiona doesn’t flinch, Elissa sees, even though she’s easily half her husband’s size. “You can’t just be cured and that’s the end of it, there has to be something – what about your blood?” He turns to Morrigan. “Wasn’t that what you said, that there might be something in her blood?”

“’twas supposition at best,” Morrigan says, but she’s watching Fiona closely, as though she’s not quite convinced she’s speaking the truth.

“And supposition is all it is, I am afraid,” Fiona agrees, voice firm, but not unkind. “I am sorry, Your Majesties, but I cannot help you.”

“But why were you cured?” Alistair presses. “What is it about you? Why did your body reject the taint when there’s no record of it happening to anyone else?”

 _Why should you live, while my wife dies?_ He doesn’t speak the words, but Elissa hears them all the same, and by the way her expression changes, she knows Fiona does, too.

“If answers to those questions are what you came here looking for, I am afraid you have come to the wrong person,” she says, voice strangely thick, as though holding back tears, but her face remains perfectly composed.

“Excuse me,” she says then, pressing slender hands against her robes, “but I’m afraid I am needed elsewhere.” A final look at Elissa, and that old sorrow in her eyes shines with almost unbearable honesty. “I am sorry your journey here was in vain.”

Then, white-knuckled hands gripping the skirts of her robes, she’s turned to walk back up the staircase, spine ramrod straight, but Elissa catches a glimpse of her hands shaking, before she’s tucked them away in the thick green folds.

And it can’t be easy, to deliver a death sentence. She took no pleasure in admitting she had no answers to their questions, although perhaps accepting it would have been easier, Elissa thinks, if she had. There’d be someone to blame, to point her finger at, other than the taint slowly corrupting her from inside. It’s always easier to fight an enemy of flesh and blood, and if Fiona had held the secret to the cure and demanded payment, it would have been a far better fate to deal with than the yawning gap of helplessness that’s opened up in her chest now.

Alistair looks like he’s ready to follow Fiona up the stairs, hands clenched at his sides, and his heart open and bared – _vulnerable_ , she thinks; her husband always makes himself so terribly vulnerable.

“Alistair,” Elissa says quietly, suddenly too tired for words. “Don’t.”

He’s turned towards her, and there’s a fight in him still, she can tell – it all but thrums in every gesture, every twitch of his fingers and the heavy press of his brow. And it almost breaks her, because suddenly she finds she can’t remember what it feels like, to _want_ to keep fighting despite everything.

“We can’t just let her walk off,” he says. “I won’t allow it.”

“Your word holds no jurisdiction here, alas,” Morrigan interjects. “Or have you forgotten we are no longer in Ferelden?”

“Ali,” Elissa tries again, and her voice sounds small – too small for a Queen, and even for a Warden-Commander. But with her hope in tatters, she doesn’t have the strength to keep pushing, to keep rising against the odds. “Please. I just want to rest.”

He looks like he wants to argue, but she must truly look as tired as she feels, because he relents without another word.

“Alright,” he says then, and before she can open her mouth to ask – because they’d gone straight to the College without stopping to find rooms for the night, and the evening sun dipping low beyond the tall windows is a gentle reminder that they’re travellers, still – he’s veered down the nearest corridor, no doubt seeking to hunt down one of the novices. There’s restless anger in his strides, too brusque and more fitting a king than a commoner, but Elissa knows some things are hard to shake; she’s been trying for three years with little success.

The foyer sits, quiet in the wake of his departure, and the heavy weight of disappointment cloaks the room, until she feels like she’s suffocating with it. And the Song that had been kept at bay all afternoon comes roaring back, pressing against her skull, her skin and bones, until she’s shaking with it.

A hand on her shoulder, and Zev’s quiet murmur reaches her ear, but she doesn’t have the strength to answer, trapped by her own mind in a spiral of hopelessness. She’s not a stranger to hardship – she’s not unfamiliar with bumps in the road, and persevering despite the odds being stacked against her. When she’d first learned to fight with a sword, she’d fallen on her ass more than she’d succeeded parrying her tutor’s strikes, and with every fall her competitive streak had sent her surging back to her feet.

But one day she’d take one fall too many, and with angry tears pressing against her eyes, had declared to her father that she was done learning the sword, and would he kindly give her practice things back to Ser Gilmore? In answer, her father had wiped her tears, and tucked her hair behind her ear. And she can conjure the words, if not the exact sound of his voice–

_Take a breath, pup, and try again._

And she tries now to do just that, to dust herself off and start searching for another option, another lead to follow. But it’s hard – oh it’s so infinitely hard to continue, to keep drawing breath when there’s no more air, and no more strength left in her heart to want to keep trying.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s not long after the former Grand Enchanter’s departure that Alistair and Elissa have cleared the room, ushered off by the same novice that had brought the wine and leaving Morrigan in the foyer with Zevran, and the promise that they will be shown to their own quarters shortly.

Legs curled up beneath him, Kieran dozes in one of the chairs, young heart unwearied by the dealings of adults. A small mercy, Morrigan muses, on a day where they have been offered little.

“I suspected it would not be so easy,” Zevran observes, stepping up beside her. “In my experience, answers are rarely given free of charge. Although she did not name a price. Curious.”

“Indeed.”

“Were your suspicions confirmed, at least?” he asks then.

Remembering the expression on the elf’s face, Morrigan hums, “Oh, without a doubt.”

“Then you think she is lying?”

She hesitates, considering the question, and the answer. “No – not lying, exactly,” she says at length. Lying is too straightforward for someone as skilled at deliberate omissions as the Grand Enchanter. “But I do not think it is as simple a matter as she would have us believe. She may not have the cure squirrelled away in her robes, but her insistence that she knew nothing, now that I have a hard time believing.”

Because she’d known _something_ – or suspected something, at the very least, of that Morrigan is certain. But whatever her own suspicions, Fiona had deemed voicing them too big a risk.

A blond brow quirks. “No?”

“No.”

“Then how do you suggest we proceed?” Zevran asks. And there’s concern there, in the weight of his brow. He’d seen the look on Elissa’s face. They all had.

“For now? We wait.” Regrettably, she can’t force the answers from Fiona’s mouth, if there are even answers to be had. But there are other ways of coaxing information from the unwilling – if she’s learned anything from her time at Celene’s side, it’s that.

Tucking her travelling cloak around Kieran’s sleeping shape, Morrigan considers his face, small features lax in sleep; his lightly parted mouth and the long, dark lashes kissing his cheeks. And there’s a knowledge sitting deep in her bones, in the very heart of her being, that there is no limit to the lengths she’d go to, to protect her son.

“A desperate soul will do desperate things,” she adds softly, brushing a dark lock of hair away from that little face. “If given the right incentive.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

For all that they were given no answers, they’re offered lodgings for their troubles.

The room is lovely – a high, arching ceiling, and royal blue walls decorated with stencils of white flowers. A rosewood vanity sits against the far wall, and the bed is a miracle unto itself, the mattress sinking beneath her weight when she sits, as though ready to keep her. There’s a rich velvet canopy, and a whole host of other small comforts that she hasn’t known since leaving Denerim – a row of beautiful blown-glass vials by the mirror holding scented oils, and a silver-backed hairbrush that’s a far cry from the broken teeth of the comb she’s got stuffed in her saddlebags.

They’ve yet to pull the drapes closed, and Elissa can spot the city sprawled beyond the windows, shrouded in the gathering dark, an indistinguishable world of shadows but for the mage-lights glinting from the wealthier districts.

On the thick rug before the fireplace, her husband is pacing.

“Alistair, come to bed.” She’d been ushered into a bath, for all that she hadn’t asked for one, but she’s cleaner than she’s felt in a small lifetime, her still-damp hair curling gently and smelling of lavender. Small comforts, and she wishes suddenly, fiercely, that she could truly feel them.

Alistair has shucked off his cloak and surcoat, and his shirt is only halfway tucked into his trousers, and for a moment she’s so captivated by the sight of him, rumpled and fretting, that she forgets the relentless headache pushing against her temples.

“I still think we should press for better answers,” he says. “That mage – I don’t trust her.”

The bedding is soft against her bare legs. Someone had left a dressing robe for her, a lovely thing of deep emerald silk – not new, at least going by the lightly worn edges and the soft smell that clings to the fabric, but she can’t think of who would leave such a personal thing for her, and why.

“You know, you said the exact same thing about both Mor and Zev,” Elissa reminds him. “And look where we are now.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

He turns toward her, arms crossed over his chest. The gesture tugs at his shirt, and she spies a slip of skin above the waistline of his trousers. “It just is. I can feel it – there’s something about her, something she’s not telling us.”

She feels tired, suddenly. “Everyone is entitled to their secrets, Alistair.” As Grey Wardens, they really shouldn’t be pointing fingers.

Alistair huffs a breath. “Not when your life is on the line. She can have all the secrets she wants, but if there’s something she’s not telling us that might help, I don’t care – I’ll get it out of her. Morrigan can probably help, can’t she threaten to turn her into a toad or something?”

Despite herself, she wants to smile. “I doubt a little shape-shifting will threaten a former Grand Enchanter.”

Dragging a hand through his hair, she can tell it’s in reluctant acquiescence, but in three strides he’s covered the distance between them, sinking down onto the mattress beside her. “There has to be a way – something we haven’t considered,” he says then, one of his hands reaching to cover both of hers where she’s got them tucked in her lap. It dwarfs them, and she’s suddenly claimed by the sight – the small scars and the veins and the familiar arch of his knuckles.

“Give me an idea, Lis.”

She looks up to find his expression pleading, and she wonders what he sees – if she looks the way she feels, tired and tainted; dressed in a lovely silk robe and smelling of lavender, but little more than a husk clad in finery.

Thinking about it makes her itch, as though she’ll somehow taint the robe just by touching it – as though she’ll inevitably do the same with him, no matter how resistant he appears to be to the spread of the taint.

 _I won’t take you down with me,_ she thinks then – _vows_ , her eyes tracking the shift of his expression as he waits for her answer, for her to give him an idea, anything at all. But she can’t conjure so much as a light-hearted quip, something truly ridiculous, even knowing that it might make him smile.

But she doesn’t have to say it, for him to understand, and then he’s pulling her towards him, tucking her against his chest and pressing his nose into the dip of her throat, and Elissa fists her trembling hands in the back of his shirt.

 _What happened to your fighting heart, pup?_ And she can’t tell if it’s the Song or some other curse that’s the reason why she’s hearing her father’s voice so much lately.

She feels Alistair inhale, the way his back expands beneath her palms, and the shudder that races through his whole body. A breath for courage – the kind taken before a plunge, the rolling-up-one’s-sleeves kind of gesture that comes before one starts looking for other options, and she almost can’t take it, the thought that he’ll suggest they start over, but what he says instead is – “Where did you get this?”

He’s fingering the sleeve of her robe, and she blinks. “This? It was hanging on the tub, in the bathing room. It’s probably just an old hand-me-down.” Perhaps it’s just a robe used for guests, the few they have at the College. “Why, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing, it’s just the – smell. Strange. It’s familiar, but I can’t seem to place it.” A kiss against her neck then, just below her ear, but it’s a prompt thing, not an initiation, and she can’t tell whether she’s disappointed or not when he says, “Come on, let’s get some sleep.” And when he tugs at her hands, she follows, allowing him to draw her under the covers and pretending that she doesn’t feel as numb as she does – as though her own limbs are just phantoms, unable to take in the softness of the sheets, and the warmth of the heavy coverlet tucked around her.

Alistair is asleep before long, and Elissa lies awake listening to his breathing, hoping beyond hope that there is any solace to be found in the sound, and that she will wake anew with an idea of how to proceed – that she will wake with the will to try.

 _Give me an idea_ , she begs the dark, and whoever is willing to listen – the Maker or the Old Gods, she’s too tired to care, and when sleep begins to tug at her limbs, she goes willingly into the abyss.

_I’ll take anything._

 

 

* * *

 

 

_There’s a wildness in her, a renewed energy that springs to life in her veins, pushing her forward, laughing and trilling, the sound pulling like a banshee’s elated shriek from her lungs. And she’s alive with it, with the sound and the Song, and she’s never known peace like this – this keen sense of rightness, of finally coming home._

_But – there’s blood on her hands, her own and someone else’s, black and red intermingled, and her confusion halts her in her tracks, makes her pause. Whose…? No weapons on her body, no rose-hilt sword or shield or dagger, and her hands are heavy, as though holding a great weight – as though they could rend flesh and bone asunder, she thinks, with sudden certainty._

_Yes, she could. If she wanted to, she could tear the very fabric of the world apart._

_There’s an audible **crunch** when she steps back, and she whirls, looking for the source of the sound, and finds, strewn along the path, petals – wilted and dried. Roses, probably. No, most certainly, and she wants to laugh, and dance, and run, and –_

_And then she sees him, and the earth rises, great walls caging her in, a throne room, a burial chamber, a tomb, a prison, and on the raised dais, her husband’s body. Prepared for a king’s funeral, his blue cloak draped across the stone altar, and his hands – the scars, the veins, the arch of his knuckles, she knows them all – folded over his chest, his crown of thorns piercing his brow and wilted roses strewn about him, a commoner’s offering in lieu of coins and jewels._

_And she knows then, whose blood is on her hands – knows that she’d wanted to dance, victorious in her bloodlust and what it has yielded, but it’s not the Song that pulls from her mouth now but a scream of anguish so terrible it shakes the foundation of the earth she’s standing on, until she’s ripping apart at the seams –_

– and she’s choking, unable to breathe, the scream a soundless gasp forced from aching lugs, and in the dark it’s impossible to distinguish the velvet drapes from the walls, and panic takes hold of her heart with enough force to push her bodily from the bed, and she’s clambering for the chamber-pot just in time to violently lose the contents of her stomach.

When the last has shuddered out of her, she doesn’t have the strength to do more than roll out of the way, onto her side and away from the porcelain bowl. Her skin is slick with sweat, and she’s shivering – fever-wrought like she hasn’t been in weeks, and clinging with the last shreds of her strength to her own fragile sanity.

She can still remember the urge to dance – the Song drumming its wicked tune in her veins, her bloodied hands reverent in their worship, and she’s ready to retch again, but there’s nothing more to throw up, and the heaving leaves her gasping and raw, and curled in on herself like a frightened child.

She loses track of how long she lies there, on the floor in the dark. By some small miracle she hasn’t woken Alistair, but it’s been a long journey for them all, and it’s the first real bed he’s had in weeks. And Elissa doesn’t begrudge him his rest, not after the long nights he’s spent keeping her nightly terrors at bay, all the way from Ferelden.

Thoughts of their journey make her think of Fiona, and her inexplicable sorrow. A dead-end, as she’d feared, but she’d still hoped, and damn her for hoping – damn her for thinking their speculations might lead anywhere, when she’s been searching for years with no luck.

Lifting a shaking hand, Elissa considers it, the dip of her palm and the slender fingers – _made for more delicate work than swordsmanship, surely_ , someone had once said, and her father had laughed, proudly defiant.

_Small hands indeed, but a heart too great for needlework and calligraphy. She will shape more than duels with those hands, mark my words._

Fingers curling towards her palm, Elissa clenches her hand to a fist. She’s not dead yet, but she’s living on borrowed time. And she’d known this – she’d known the fate that awaited her even before leaving Denerim on her fool’s quest. Why had she agreed to let them accompany her? Why hadn’t she sent them away, every single one of them, when she knew just what path she was walking, and what awaited her at the end of it?

She thinks of that bloodlust, clinging to her skin still, a taint in its own right. And she thinks of her friends – of Zevran’s good humour, and Morrigan’s concern buried beneath layers of threats and annoyance. Kieran’s inquisitive mind, and quiet understanding.

And Alistair, determined to be her husband, after everything.

If she turns – if she becomes the beast, the one she recognises in her soul, clawing its way into her dreams with such ease – she might not remember, and the next time she wakes it might not be from a dream but from her own actions. Perhaps she’ll mistake them for enemies, for creatures not of her own kind.

Perhaps that’s just the problem – that they won’t be.

She’s made her decision even before she’s pushed to her feet, the thick rug masking the sound of her footsteps as she staggers toward the armchair by the fireplace. And she dresses with an eerie calm, fingers trembling but defiant as she pulls on her shirt and trousers, her surcoat and greaves.

The emerald robe she drapes over the back of the chair, fingertips lingering by the supple fabric, and for a single heartbeat she allows herself to remember another life, and another sort of chambers, thick wooden doors and furs draped across the bed. Her own vanity, once her mother’s, with its Mabari carvings, and the chest with her dresses – her favourite in grey-and-silver that she’d worn on her coronation day.

Then she pushes the memories from her mind, and steels herself – roots her thoughts in the present, standing in the dark chamber like a thief in the night. And perhaps she is, stealing away with his trust, as she did once before.

She pauses by the bed, but doesn’t dare touch him, even though she fairly aches with it. And there’s a sob in her throat, caught and held out of sheer stubbornness, but she allows her tears to fall freely, gathering in the soft fabric of her husband’s cloak, her final, selfish indulgence, as she says her good-byes for the very last time.

_Forgive me, my love._

The corridors are quiet as she takes her leave, no novices present to jump at her shadow, and she makes her way down the stairs and out through the kitchens without being spotted, pushed by desperation more than any knowledge of where she’s going. Because she knows that if they catch her – if they catch wind of what she’s planning to do, they’ll never let her out of their sights, and if the taint claims her (when, it’s always been a question of _when_ ), it will be too late to run.

She finds Briar in the stables, perking awake at her arrival, and if she has reservations about her mistress’ decision, the horse keeps them to herself, and offers no resistance as Elissa saddles her with near brutal efficiency. And then she’s nudging her into the quiet streets, hood pulled low over her brow and her heart an open wound, but her steps are silent, and soft as death.

Because that’s where she’s heading now; the only path left for her to walk.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The grand doors to her private chambers yield with little resistance, before sliding shut behind her, and the quiet is a welcome thing, after a long day spent with an open ear and an open mind. It taxes the soul, but there is a keen sense of purpose in her work – in the looks of gratitude, and the voice of the Maker alive in her heart.

Toeing off her shoes – embroidered silk slippers, a decadent and private indulgence, but then who can tell beneath the robes? – Leliana moves to cross the chamber, when the presence of another asserts itself, making her pause.

There are three hidden daggers on her person, and she knows how long it would take her to reach each one, but before she’s had the chance to so much as let her fingers twitch towards the first, a voice rises out of the dark.

“One on your hip, if I remember. And…wait, do you wear a bodice beneath that thing?”

Heart leaping into her throat, she’s turning, the bare soles of her feet allowing her to spin easily on the thick carpet, and for a moment she wonders if it’s a vision, if it’s just the shadows playing ticks on her over-worked mind, but then that small, familiar shape is stepping out of the darkest corner of her chambers, and Leliana’s heart stutters to a stop in her chest.

“Lis?”

There’s only one lantern lit in the room, and she can’t see her friend’s face, but she knows that shape – the slender figure and the graceful steps, careful and controlled. And it’s joy that makes her heart jump now, because it’s been years – a small age, since they last saw one another, and no amount of letters exchanged can truly breach the chasm left by a dear friend’s absence.

Then Elissa takes one step into the glow of the lantern-light, and Leliana almost rears back.

It takes her a moment to find her voice, but when she does – “You didn’t tell me it was this bad.”

A sad smile flickers across her face, and Leliana can’t tell if it’s the odd shadows thrown by the lantern or something far darker that makes her eyes appear as they do, over-large and hollow. She’s cut her hair, she notes, and it falls, silvery-blonde against the sharp curve of her jaw. A thin webbing of veins lies visible beneath the skin of her temples, almost translucent under the lantern’s gentle glow.

Leliana almost doesn’t recognise her – the woman she’d seen last at a banquet in Denerim, bedecked in pearls and silver silk, and laughing so hard she’d barely been able to hold her glass without spilling the contents.

Elissa shrugs one shoulder, as though her appearance is something to be shrugged off. “It doesn’t exactly make for good letter-writing material.”

There’s a protest at the tip of her tongue – that it’s what friends are for, to share one’s burdens, however heavy the weight – but instead of answering she moves, closing the distance between them in three long strides, and when she reaches out her friend doesn’t flinch away, but accepts the embrace with an almost fierce relief.

She’s grown thin – not as sturdy as she once was, although the grip of her arms tells of a strength that’s not quite gone yet. But the fact that she feels so slight in her arms – the woman who’d guided them through the fifth Blight, who’d carried their individual burdens along with her own, and taken the whole of Ferelden upon her back – makes a dark thought curl through Leliana’s mind.

Drawing back, she holds Elissa at arm’s length, and, “What brings you here?” she asks, although she already suspects what the answer will be.

Her friend has steeled her features, but her lip trembles a bit as she speaks, the words hoarse and pulled from somewhere old and tired.

“I’m going on my Calling.”

And it’s as she’d feared, but the words still strike with unexpected force, leaving her winded and feeling strangely defiant. And once more there’s a protest, pushing against her teeth, begging to be heard – that the Maker is not so cruel, and surely there must be a way–

“Leli,” Elissa says, before she can speak. “Please. I didn’t come here to be dissuaded.”

And the way in which she says it – that honest resignation on her face, and the exhaustion that clings to her whole being – drives realisation home.

And so, “I know,” Leliana says, softly. “But I am still allowed my own grief, am I not?”

Elissa doesn’t smile, but Leliana suspects there’s been few reasons to as of late, and laments the loss of that grin – the delighted, toothy curve of teeth that had once been her dearest gift.

“What about Alistair?” she asks then, the thought a sudden, relentless thing, refusing to be ignored. There’s been the odd letter exchanged between them, but – “Does he know?”

Something darkens behind her eyes, once-bright stormclouds that have never looked duller. “I’ve said my goodbyes,” Elissa says, but the vague nature of the answer makes Leliana pause.

“This is my choice,” Elissa says then, as though sensing where the conversation is going. “While I’m still lucid enough to make it. It’s not – you know I’d never do this, if I thought there was another way.” A pained thing passes over her features, pulling at her brows, the corners of her mouth, and when she speaks next her voice breaks. “I’ve been searching for so long, Leliana. If there is a cure somewhere, I can’t be the one to find it – I don’t have enough time left, to keep trying.”

Time – it’s always a matter of time, she thinks, with a foreboding sense of premonition. And for all the divine power bestowed upon her, there’s nothing she can do now, faced with her friend’s harrowing plight.

“Would – would you pray for me?” Elissa asks then, dropping her gaze to the floor. “I know I haven’t been the best example of following the Chantry’s teachings, and I know this isn’t a boon I deserve–”

“Elissa,” Leliana interrupts, fiercely. “You do not need to ask.”

And she may not be able to do much, but she can do _this_ – can offer these last rites, the guidance for a long road coming to a bitter end. But even with all her training and all her years in service to the Maker, she finds her voice failing her, now when she needs it most. And so she allows her heart to speak instead, and for the quiet to observe their parting, the fierce clench of their hands together remembering nights before the campfire, elbows linked and stories shared, as girls would, in another world.

When she’s done she touches her fingertips to a tired brow, and feels Elissa shudder, dragging a breath through her nose that trembles with a sob, but refuses to release it.

“I should be leaving,” she says then, voice thick, and giving a quick swipe of her knuckles beneath her eyes. “Thank you for all the guidance you’ve given me. I wish – I wish we could have had a better reunion than this.”

“I will see you again,” Leliana says, vehement in that belief, but by the way Elissa’s expression softens, it’s clear she’s not expecting to join the Maker’s side beyond death. Few Wardens carry that belief, on account of the taint.

But as she turns to leave, cloaking herself in shadows once more and leaving Leliana in her chambers, a hollow space sitting within the cage of her ribs, it’s a desperate sort of grief that pushes the next prayer off her tongue, spoken with every ounce of faith in her heart and her broken voice –

“The Maker guide your path, my friend. Wherever it may lead you.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

He wakes to beams of sunlight streaming through the windows, and it takes him a moment to come to himself, to string together enough pieces of reality to determine where he is, and when he does it’s with a happy sigh that he lets his weight sink further into the soft feather mattress.

He’s become too used to small luxuries, Alistair thinks, rolling over to find Elissa’s side of the bed empty, the sheets rumpled but cold, and he cranes his neck to observe the room, bathed in shafts of golden light. The lovely green robe hangs discarded over the back of the armchair, and her gear is missing, but she’ll have been up for hours already, going by the position of the sun.

“Maker’s breath, how long did I sleep?” Rubbing at his eyes, he’s fumbling for the edge of the bed, pushing his bulk up and off the mattress as he makes to search for his pants. It doesn’t take him long to dress – or at the very least, to look presentable enough to hunt down something resembling breakfast, unless that’s what his wife is off doing.

He makes an idle note of the chamber-pot, pulled out from underneath the bed, and his brows furrow – he hadn’t heard her wake, but the evidence of her nightmares is there, sitting in plain sight. She must have decided to let him sleep.

It takes him a few moments of wandering the corridors with a lost look on his face before one of the novices takes pity on him and sends him down a flight of stairs and into a small chamber, tucked away at the far corner of the College, but well-lit by a bank of windows giving an ample view of the city beneath. There’s a fire crackling in the hearth, and a table has been set for them; the smell of breakfast foods makes his mouth water before he’s fully entered the room.

“Well, well,” Morrigan says, lifting a cup of tea to her lips, and Alistair is tempted to ask if she can even stomach the brew if it doesn’t taste like marsh-water. “We were wondering how long you would be sleeping in.”

“Do not tease him, my dear,” Zevran smiles from beside her, slicing off a piece of apple before popping it in his mouth. “At least he comes wearing pants. A small mercy.”

“Har har,” Alistair offers, making for the table. For all of Fiona’s reluctance to assist them, they’ve been treated like royalty – perhaps in part because they are, but he can’t summon even a shred of guilt for the fact that she should feel any obligation to lodge and feed them. Not after her stubborn refusal to so much as answer their questions.

“Where’s Elissa?’” he asks then, when one of the novices scurries past with a tray carrying a pot of something that must be coffee, by the smell – a real luxury, that, and whoever is bleeding their funds into the College of Enchanters, it’s not petty coppers they’re offering.

He reckons his wife would want a cup, but there’s no sign of her presence at the table – only three of the plates have been used, and although Kieran is nowhere to be seen, the plate next to Morrigan’s holds the remains of a half-eaten orange, and he knows his wife can’t stomach the fruit.

Zevran offers him a curious look. “We assumed she was with you. Enjoying marital bliss, as it were. With these beds, you would be fools not to take advantage.”

Alistair doesn’t bother commenting on that – a fiercely private thing he wouldn’t share even if goaded into trying. But the words make him pause, although before he can voice his next question, Morrigan beats him to it.

“She was gone when you woke?” And there’s a flicker of suspicion in her eyes that Alistair doesn’t like, not one bit, and for the simple fact that it makes his skin crawl.

“Her gear was missing, so I assumed she’d gone down,” he’s saying then, the words suddenly thick and awkward in his mouth. It almost sounds like an excuse, and something that feels like panic pushes off his tongue next, “But if she’s not here–” And he can’t make himself finish the sentence, because the suggestion – illogical as it might be to even suspect it, he thinks, but even as he tries to convince himself of that, he remembers suddenly the look on Elissa’s face the night before – the quiet surrender, where he’d once have expected her to fight.

_Please. I just want to rest._

“Are – are you talking about the lady Warden?” the novice with the tray pipes up then, a coltish lad with too-long arms, and it takes a moment for Alistair to place him as one of the young mages who’d prepared Elissa’s bath the night before. Having put down the pot of coffee, he’s hugging the empty tray to his chest like a shield. “I think she’s gone out. Her horse was missing from the stables this morning.”

It takes him a moment to digest the words – and the implications, bold and bright and unavoidable now, exposed to the noonday sun.

“She wouldn’t,” he hears himself saying then, turning to Morrigan for confirmation, but the furrow of her brows doesn’t offer any consolation. Rather the opposite. “Tell me she wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I think she is more than capable of convincing herself of the necessity of that choice,” she says, already rising from her seat. “You know as well as I that she does not shy from desperate measures.”

“ _Desperate_ – you’re telling me you think she’s gone on her Calling!” And he doesn’t care that he’s shouting, his voice reaching a near hysteric pitch, because he can’t believe the words coming out of the witch’s mouth.

Morrigan tosses him a withering look. “Would you rather I sugar-coat the truth, and tell you she’s likely gone shopping? You are not a child, Alistair.” But even with her voice perfectly level, he catches the flicker of fear in her eyes – so brief and so quick, and suffocated before she’s let herself feel the full effects.

And for once, he finds he can’t stomach her insufferable calm.

“Don’t,” he snaps, when it looks like she’s about to continue speaking, and he’s striding toward them now, but Morrigan doesn’t so much as flinch in response. Behind her, Zevran has risen from his own chair, the apple forgotten but the knife clutched between white-knuckled fingers, his earlier humour wiped from his face, replaced with something akin to the helplessness Alistair feels bubbling in his chest. “Don’t you dare make light of this, Morrigan. I swear, if you think this is some joke–”

“Where else would she go?” she bites the words off, hard and damning. “You saw with your own eyes how she reacted yesterday. This was our only lead.”

Anger surges within him – anger that she could so easily accept that Elissa would just give up without a fight. “That’s never stopped her before. She doesn’t just give up, she’s–” _She’s a Cousland_ , he thinks, desperately grasping for reasons, but he can’t find his voice to speak the words.

“She has been fighting for a long time,” Zevran says then, voice quiet steel slicing through the silence.

But Alistair can’t believe it – can’t make himself accept it, that he should go to bed one night with his wife within arm’s reach, and wake to find her lost forever. “But she wouldn’t – not alone–”

“Of course she would go alone!” Morrigan snaps then, as though it’s somehow his fault. “She is mind-bogglingly self-sacrificial, you cannot tell me you are at all surprised, _you_ of all people.” But when he expects her to go off again – to list the reasons he can see burning behind her eyes, that he’s failed at some fundamental level to be a husband to his wife, the one keeper who could have made sure she didn’t lose her way – she forces the fury off her face.

Then, with her anger tightly leashed, “If she felt the call as strongly as she seemed to, ‘tis likely her mind is not entirely her own,” she acquiesces, the closest thing he’ll get to an apology, Alistair knows, but it hardly matters if she’s cursing him or apologising.

His world feels like it’s shattering, the small cracks that have gathered over the years, and that had finally started to mend with Elissa’s presence in his life, expanding and deepening until it’s all he can to do keep it from falling to pieces.

She wouldn’t – he can’t believe that she would leave to go on her Calling without telling them. He’d always thought – had always harboured some last, desperate hope that however bad her condition, she would tell him if it was ever her time. And that she would allow him the chance to join her, if it had been his, too, even though he hasn’t felt the stirrings of the taint in years.

Was that why she’d left without saying anything? To make his choice for him, because she suspected he might discard their kingdom for the sake of joining her in death?

_Would he?_

He’s about to ask – what exactly, he forgets, thoughts interrupted by the gentle fall of footsteps in the doorway, the sound reaching through his grief and his refusal and dragging him back to the present, to the warm noon-lit chamber and the breakfast smells, things too mundane to bear, with everything else crashing down around him.

“What is the matter?”

And it’s _her_ – the elf with the old, grieving eyes; the woman whose actions had thrown his uncle’s arling into utter chaos, and who would have dragged Alistair’s entire kingdom down with her if it would have saved her precious mages. And now she’s standing in the doorway casually-as-you-please, as though she’s not part of the reason his wife has left on a suicide crusade to the Deep Roads.

“If only you had given us some real answers,” he’s saying then, voice rising to a near-shout, “she wouldn’t have had a reason to go off on her own!” And he’s aware, somewhere at the back of his mind, that he’s overreacting, and – _that’s not very kingly_ , comes the echo of his wife’s voice, from when she could muster enough joy to let it bleed into her words.

_You’re thinking with your heart, my love, not your brain. And I do so adore your heart, but it’s a terribly impulsive thing for a king to have._

Confusion passes over Fiona’s features, tugging her brows down, before recognition sparks in her eyes – taking in the room, their missing companion, and Alistair’s barely-contained fury.

“She left,” she says, seeming to voice the words to herself, as though quietly disbelieving.

“You were the one hope we had,” Alistair continues, voice breaking now, and – it’s not very kingly, either, in fact it’s probably the least kingly he’s ever been, but he’d give crown and kingdom and his own damn life to this mage if it could somehow sway her to give them something – _anything._

“I–” Fiona begins, and there’s that strange anguish – that vivid, too-bright thing that she either doesn’t try to mask, or can’t. “I do not know if I can help you – that the suspicions I have may even be useful to you. I did not think they would be, yesterday. And I was – afraid.”

Part of him wants to press – to ask what there is to be afraid of, when she’s not the one dying of the taint. But all his anger seems to have bled out of him, and all he’s left with is a desperation that sits like a sucking void in his chest.

“Tell me,” he says – begs, entirely unashamed, and uncaring of how it makes him look. “Tell me what you know. I’ll give you anything you want, I don’t care, just – please, if it can save my wife–” He drags in a breath, chest aching, and, “ _Please_.”

A multitude of emotions shifts across the elf’s delicate face, and for a moment Alistair wonders how he must look – the King of Ferelden, almost on his knees, his private anguish laid bare for everyone to see. And perhaps it won’t sway her one inch – perhaps she’d rather see him knocked down a peg, for how he’d treated her in Redcliffe, and the way he’d spoken to her yesterday.

“It is not in my blood you will find your cure,” Fiona says then, and when Alistair lifts his gaze it’s to find a look of resignation on her face. Resignation, and – something else, something he can’t put his finger on, but he isn’t given the chance to consider it long before she’s speaking again, the sigh loosed from her chest making her shoulders sink, as though letting go of an ancient burden.

“If anything, it is in yours.”


End file.
